helen met dité on the first day of rush. all the other girls were wearing sundresses, mostly floral, their hair in delicate, beachy waves. helen had braided her hair into a crown, because she planned to save her Hair Down Look for the pref round; she knew her strengths. you don’t send out your big guns on day one.
helen was also wearing a sundress, and it was also floral, because after watching forty-seven Rush Outfit Ideas videos on youtube, she’d assembled five perfect looks. it was fine that her dress looked like everybody else’s — in fact, it was better that way, because helen wore it so much more beautifully. anyone can get noticed in a zany fashion disaster. helen was going to get noticed despite looking identical.
she was standing boredly in one of the non-delta houses (helen already knew where she was going to go, obviously, but you weren’t allowed to skip the whole rigamarole), vaguely pretending to be interested in whatever the fuck the sorority president was saying about the history of the sorority, when dité rolled in. she was twenty-five minutes late, and she was wearing baggy boyfriend jeans and a white t-shirt, tied into a crop, her face obscured by impenetrably, comically large sunglasses. her baseball hat said women want me. the minds of fish are unknowable.
somehow, despite this, she was immediately the most beautiful person in the room.
fuck, thought helen.
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