Free Rushing to Die by Lindsay Emory

“liability” and “accountability.”
    So I asked myself that age-­old question: What would Miss America do?
    â€œThat an excellent question, Nick—­may I call you Nick?” Nick nodded, because how else was he going to answer? “The thing about sororities, in the case of Delta Beta especially, is that we are very old institutions. In 1879, Mary Gerald Callahan and Leticia Baumgardner founded Delta Beta, as a way for women to grow as individuals, to form lifelong bonds of sisterhood, and to contribute to the community as a large group would, for example, men.”
    â€œMen?”
    â€œMen, who have long been encouraged by society to have this sort of organization. In that way, Mary Gerald Callahan and Leticia Baumgardner were pioneers. Heroines, in my book. And 1879 was such a long time ago, and many sisters have died in our metaphysical house, bonded by friendship. Therefore, the answer is, no. The Delta Beta sisterhood doesn’t bring women down, it empowers women.”
    Nick Holden squinted at me. “I see.” Then he seemed to have trouble forming his next question. “Are you saying that if the Delta Beta sorority were filled with men, then I wouldn’t be asking these questions?”
    â€œI would never call you sexist,” I assured him.
    He recovered quickly. “In this day and age, is there really a point to Greek life? I understand that in 1879, there was a good reason for women to empower themselves. But in the twenty-­first century, don’t incidents like the recent murders show us that there’s no safety in secret societies that cloister women away from the world?”
    I had lost control of something along the way. This was an entirely new direction that I wasn’t expecting and one that my brain couldn’t quite grasp. “Is there a point to being Greek ?” I asked incredulously. Surely, that wasn’t a real question.
    â€œIsn’t it time to stop walling off our colleges? Bring everyone together, regardless of color, class, culture?”
    Despite the warm air of the coffee shop, I was suddenly chilled to the bone.
    â€œIsn’t that what Mary Callahan and Leticia Baumgardner would have wanted?”
    Gerald, I wanted to add. It was Mary Gerald Callahan. But it was so beside the point. Nick Holden didn’t pose a danger to Delta Beta. Quite clearly, I understood that his second cable-­news special wasn’t going to be about another murder at the Sutton Deb house.
    â€œI can tell you’re an intelligent, motivated woman,” he was saying. “You’re educated, accomplished, and a feminist. Surely you can see that the time for Greek systems has come and gone. They’re antiquated bastions of misogyny, privilege, and pseudoreligion, and there’s just no place for them in modern society.”
    â€œWhat . . . How . . .” I choked. No Miss America worth her crown could come up with an answer to the hate speech Nick Holden was spewing, and neither could I.
    â€œI’ve been conducting interviews with various students and staff, and I’m hearing that more and more ­people are seeing what I’m seeing.”
    â€œYou want to end the Greek system?” It was inconceivable. “All of it?”
    Nick lifted his shoulders. “More like, just let it die off. Like a spider, trapped under a cup.”
    Which was an inaccurate analogy, if you asked me. Sorority women hated spiders.
    I searched my soul and realized that the time for playing games with Nick Holden was over. It was all well and good for me to dissemble and act coy when he was trying to pin my chapter for being accomplices to murder. But he had gone a step too far by threatening our entire way of life. I couldn’t in good conscience leave this coffee shop without speaking my truth. I leaned over the digital recorder, and, in a clear voice, said, “I disagree with you one hundred