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Michael

Alyssa told me that it would take her five minutes to get from her physics class to mine - it's the only overlap in our schedules. I offered to rearrange my classes, but she insisted on being able to run from her building to mine. She said something about being a runner, but I couldn't really care less. She could be riding a cheetah for all I care. The only thing that matters to me is punctuality - I hate tardiness.

I check my phone again. It's almost four - my class ended twenty minutes ago.

So why the hell am I still in my classroom?

The last couple of students who stayed after class to talk to the professor, Dr. Hall, have all slowly trailed out. Dr. Hall cheerfully whistles as he turns off the projector and packs up his briefcase. Just as he's about to leave, he looks up and spots me sitting at the very back. His brows furrow together in concern.

"Do you need help?" he calls.

I quickly shake my head. "No thanks, I'm waiting for-"

"Hi Michael!"

I nearly jump out of my chair as Alyssa comes bursting into the room through the door behind me. I can hear Dr. Hall quietly chuckling as he slips out the side doors.

"You're late," I grumble, straining over to turn around. I'm taken aback for a moment. Her pants are smudged with dirt, her shirt is wrinkled, and random remnants of a tree stick out from all sorts of directions in her hair. I stare, bewildered at her jarring state. "The hell happened to you?"

She laughs and begins pulling out the tiny twigs and leaves tangled into her hair. "Sorry! I saw a baby bird fall out of a tree on my way here and helped get it back up into its nest."

"You can't just mess with nature like that, Alyssa. Haven't you ever heard of survival of the fittest?"

She sticks her tongue out at me. "Of course I have," she scoffs. "But I wasn't about to let a baby bird die at the mercy of someone's foot."

"Whatever, I'm already late for my meeting, let's just go."

Alyssa efficiently slings my bag over the handles of the wheelchair and wheels me out of the room. Despite it only having been six days since the accident, we've gotten into a relatively decent routine. We're definitely nowhere near good when it comes to my standards. But at the very least, we aren't constantly at each other's throats anymore.

The early afternoon air is icy and nips at my cheeks as soon as we're outside. I know that there's a new wool scarf in my bag that Alyssa got for me. I called it stupid and unnecessary but she insisted I keep it with me. Asking her for it now would be blatantly admitting I'm wrong.

I'm not going that far to avoid the cold.

I'm Canadian, we've adapted to live in this weather, alright?

"You sure have a lot of meetings, huh?"

"It's to weed out the weaklings," I chuckle. "The first couple weeks are always purposely hectic."

The ones who are committed and hardworking are the ones who stay, everyone else bails. Jane was unsure about it this year, having such an unstable team and all, but I managed to convince her to keep the tradition going. Out of the twelve new students who joined, seven are still left.

Alyssa is silent for a moment before speaking up hesitantly. "That sounds a bit harsh."

"You're one to talk, sororities sound like they're full of snobby elitists who cherry pick their members," I scoff.

I can't help but smirk as I hear her grumble something under her breath.

-----

"Oh! How about a story featuring transfer students?"

"No," I say dryly. "Why are you guys such-"

Jane quickly elbows my side, cutting off my sentence with a painful grunt.

"Like I said, there's no such thing as a bad suggestion," she says through her teeth - gritted together into a pained smile. You know that things are definitely rough when Jane starts to lose her patience.

Anyways, there definitely is such a thing as a bad suggestion, especially with a theme as mundane as school spirit. We've managed to divide and assign the rest of the newspaper sections to the team, but we've made almost no progress in terms of the front page.

I tear my eyes away from the team to look back at the whiteboard. Andrea's absentmindedly twirling the marker, not having written anything new in an hour.

FEATURED STORY IDEAS

Top 10 professors.

Best food on campus.

Top 5 study spots.

Animals spotted on campus.

"Come on you guys, this is our first paper of the year," I groan, letting my head tiredly tip back. "Why are your ideas all so sh- ow!"

This time Andrea flicks the marker cap at me. "Alright everyone, how about we take a short break?"

There's an audible sigh of relief and everyone begins chatting amongst themselves. I can't help but scowl a bit. They're all so happy - laughing and socializing. Makes sense I suppose, they're all freshmen for the most part. Their bright lights will be burnt out soon enough.

Although, I don't recall ever seeming to have that much fun myself.

Over the noise, I manage to hear light knocking on the door.

"Come in," I call. I hope it's not the librarian again. Who knows how many more times they'll kick us out for noise complaints before we're banned permanently.

The door opens and Alyssa pops her head in. Her eyes roam the room till they land on me. "Hey Michael," she calls and waves to me as she comes in. "Would it have killed you to tell me which study room you'd be in? The library has like twenty."

"You seemed like someone who enjoys scavenger hunts," I snicker.

I notice the room quiets the slightest bit as people curiously investigate the ball of sunshine that suddenly entered the room. "Great news!" she exclaims cheerfully as she comes over. "Guess what email I received this morning."

"I assume you're going to tell me," I grunt.

"Sorority bids!"

Some eyes slowly drift over towards us, as people begin listening to Alyssa.

I stare at her blankly. "Are you going to explain what that means, in regular English?"

Andrea chuckles and nudges me. "They're invitations to join the sororities," she explains. I'm about to give her shit for even knowing this nonsense, before suddenly remembering Carmen. I tuned out most of her irrelevant chatter, but I'm sure she must've mentioned sororities at some point. "I take it that you're happy with your offer?"

She nods so quickly that I'm worried her head is going to fly off. "Yup! Alpha Delta Pi, my first choice. Carmen was invited as well!"

"Congrats," I snort.

"I know you're being mean, but I choose to interpret that genuinely," she giggles. "Even you can't rain on my mood today, Michael."

What's that supposed to mean? "Whatever," I grumble. "What's the big deal anyways?"

Jane brings over a chair for Alyssa and she sits down next to me. "Well," she begins, rubbing her hands together, "I love the whole sisterhood vibe. I grew up with three older brothers and always wished for an older sister to go to for advice. It was pretty lonely sometimes."

I begrudgingly give her a small nod. I was expecting it to be a much stupider reason, something I could poke fun at.

"You get a sense of belonging, you know?" She blushes a little when she realizes everyone is watching and listening to her. "It makes me feel so connected to the community at U of M, and the university itself as well! I want to leave my mark here."

"It sounds lovely." Jane gently pats Alyssa's shoulder.

Alyssa lightly clears her throat and turns back to me. "Anyways, are you ready to leave yet?"

I sigh and shake my head. "No. We still need to figure out our story," I groan. "Could you come back in an hour or so?"

"Sure, no problem!" She gets up and cheerfully waves at everyone on her way out.

As I look through my notes, I realize I don't hear the door open. I look up again and almost immediately roll my eyes. Alyssa's stopped at Cole's seat and it doesn't take a detective to tell what's going on.

"Keep it in your pants, you two," I say monotonously.

Alyssa's cheeks turn pink while Cole just lets out a gruff chuckle. He whispers something to her before she quickly scuttles out.

"Anyways, let's get back to it," I say, once Alyssa has left. "Who's next?"

I brace myself for the next stupid suggestion, but the room is oddly silent. I raise a suspicious brow as people toss knowing looks at each other.

"What's going on?" I ask warily.

Andrea snorts, "Isn't it obvious? Our featured story is going to be on the University of Markham's Greek culture."

I'm waiting for Andrea to say she's kidding, but she just stares at me blankly. My jaw drops open in bewilderment. "Absolutely not."

"Overruled," Jane states firmly.

Who in their right mind is going to want to read that? With all the drama that I'm sure fuels the Greek organizations, people might as well be reading tabloid magazines. "Well who's going to write it? No one here is in a sorority or frat."

"You of course," Jane laughs. "You have someone on the inside."

I bite my tongue to stop myself from lashing out at Jane. This might be one of the most idiotic ideas I've ever heard come out of her mouth. I take in a deep breath and focus all of my energy on staying calm. "I'm not going to do this," I sneer.

We suddenly hear a soft chime. "Oh shit, sorry, that was my phone," Cole mumbles. He takes his phone out of his pocket and quickly glances at his phone. He chuckles softly, "Hey, I just got a bid from Kappa Sigma."

I couldn't be any less surprised that Cole is a frat boy. His appearance and attitude practically radiate it. I awkwardly gesture towards him with my injured arm. "Alright, we can get Cole to write it."

"No way," Cole laughs and shakes his head. "I'm inside, but Alyssa is inside. You're probably going to get at least five times as much info from her than you would from me, especially in terms of the juicy stuff."

I stare at him blankly. "Why?"

"She's only been here for a week, but you have no idea how popular she already is within the sororities and fraternities," he chuckles. "Hell, I'm not sure if she even knows."

I raise a brow. It looks like my assumption about Little Miss Popular was right. "Again... why?"

"Well, that's for you to find out." He gives me a teasing wink.

-----

Jane barely gets her sentence out before Alyssa's eyes light up like sparklers. "Oh my gosh, of course I'll help!" she squeals and clasps her hands together.

"Glad to hear!" Jane grins and quickly makes some notes on her laptop.

The rest of the team sighs in relief. I know we were purposely making the meetings difficult, but even I wouldn't have gone as far as we had to today. They all quickly begin packing up as Jane gives them the ok to head out.

"Let me make this clear," I say sternly, "we only chose this topic because the university is forcing us to go with this stupid theme." I'd never associate myself with them otherwise.

"Yeah, yeah," Alyssa chuckles and waves her hand dismissively. "I'm so excited to share everything with you!"

"Hooray," I scoff and use all my strength to mockingly raise my arms.

She just laughs and begins helping me into my coat. "I'm moving into the AD Pi house tomorrow, you can come over then!"

"Gee, I can't wait."

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A/N:

I'm excited to see how he's going to put up with it all 😂