Frat Girl. Kiley Roache

Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Chapter Twenty-Three

       Chapter Twenty-Four

       Chapter Twenty-Five

       Chapter Twenty-Six

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-One

       Chapter Thirty-Two

       Chapter Thirty-Three

       Chapter Thirty-Four

       Chapter Thirty-Five

       Chapter Thirty-Six

       Chapter Thirty-Seven

       Chapter Thirty-Eight

       Chapter Thirty-Nine

       Chapter Forty

       Chapter Forty-One

       Chapter Forty-Two

       Chapter Forty-Three

       Chapter Forty-Four

       Chapter Forty-Five

       Chapter Forty-Six

       Chapter Forty-Seven

       Chapter Forty-Eight

       Chapter Forty-Nine

       Chapter Fifty

       Chapter Fifty-One

       Chapter Fifty-Two

       Chapter Fifty-Three

       Chapter Fifty-Four

       Chapter Fifty-Five

       Acknowledgments

       About the Publisher

       Chapter One

      The Stevenson Scholarship was magic. It had the power to make a $60,000 annual bill disappear. It was the difference between a community college and the school of my dreams. Between spending the next four years in giant lecture halls with the same kids who partied their way through high school ignoring me while I studied alone and they skipped class for beer bongs and wet T-shirt contests, and joining the most elite group of young men and women in the world. Between spending the next chapter of my life still in the Midwest—land of marrying at twenty-two and popping out 2.5 kids—where half the people would assume I was going to college only to get my “MRS degree,” and flying away to California to study feminist and gender studies at one of the most progressive places on earth.

      But I needed a project. The scholarship was funded by tech billionaire Greg Stevenson. You know, the one who created an empire by night and studied by day when he was in college just ten years ago.

      My online application was picked from among thousands, and the interview rounds went better than I could have dreamed. I was one of two finalists left and would be pitching my project to the board, including Stevenson himself, in a few days.

      I wasn’t terrible at public speaking, so I wasn’t too stressed about presenting my idea.

      The problem would be not having one.

      “I’m so fucked,” I say, sitting at my desk and scrolling through Facebook, like I might find inspiration there.

      I turn to my best friend, who is sitting, her ass halfway out my open second-story window, chain-smoking Marlboros.

      “What’s the other person doing, again?” she asks.

      The official emails didn’t tell me who my competition was, let alone what they were doing, but I searched Twitter for the name of the scholarship, and, lo and behold, my competition is the type to Tweet his every movement, from trying out a gluten-free diet for fun to humble bragging about how #blessed he was to be a Stevenson Award finalist.

      Two hours of stalking instead of working on my project later, and I knew he was a CS major from San Francisco who’d already created two moderately successful social media apps. I also knew waaaay too much about his cat, Ashby.

      “It’s got to be another app, right?” I say.

      “Well, I’m assuming it’s not poetry,” Alex says, swinging her combat-booted foot, casting a shadow on my baby-pink walls.

      I pull out my phone and turn my whole body toward her, sitting cross-legged on my desk chair.

      “He Tweeted yesterday at 11:06 a.m.