There’s something weird about a frat house after a party. An almost postapocalyptic quiet.
You’d think I’d be used to it, living in one and all. But it’s different here, in a house that’s not my own.
Much of the destruction remains, and people are passed out in odd positions all through the house. Somewhere a TV is on, some infomercial blaring away unwatched, but the foundation-shaking music is off. A calm after the cheap-beer-and-bad-rap storm.
At four in the morning, there are a few crazy souls still up at Sigma Alpha. I can hear their voices as they chat among the wreckage, but most people are tucked in bed trying to sleep off the Taaka, or...engaging in other activities.
On my walk back from the bathroom I step over an empty plastic handle and kick a few empty beer cans.
Luckily I don’t see anyone on my voyage back to Connor’s room, considering I’m wearing only one of his T-shirts, which, granted, does cover my ass, if barely, over my lacy bra and underwear.
“Hey,” he says as I step back into his room. I can hear the early morning and the strain from the night before in his voice.
I close the door behind me. “Hey.”
He smiles lazily and moves to the edge of the bed, wearing just his boxers. He reaches for me. “I’ve missed you.”
I kiss him lightly. “I’ve been gone for less than five minutes.”
“I know,” he says between pecks. “But that doesn’t mean—” kiss “—I didn’t miss you.”
I laugh against his lips, and he lifts me up by my waist, pulling me onto the bed with him.
He sits on the edge of the bed, and I sit on his lap, one leg on either side of him. We kiss slowly, deeply.
His hands tangle in my hair, and his lips are soft on mine. Kissing him is like good red wine, slow, dark and heavy. And a little bit sweet.
He lifts the hem of the shirt, and I raise my arms so he can slip it off. He turns and lays me down on the bed. He kneels above me, and for a second his eyes scan my body.
And then he’s on top of me, kissing my lips and then my neck.
“Do you want to?” he whispers in my ear.
“Want to what?” My voice is tense.
“You know.” His fingers trace the edges of my underwear.
I press my hand against his chest and slip out from under him.
He looks at me with pouting eyes.
If our relationship hasn’t advanced to the point that we can say the word sex, I doubt it’s a good decision to actually have it.
I shake my head. “I don’t feel ready.”
He places his hand on my hip, trying to pull me into him.
My heart picks up. The sultry mood has dissipated, and I just want to go back to earlier, to the other nights, when he seemed perfectly fine just being around me.
“Cassie, c’mon—we’ve hooked up, like, five times now.”
“Four,” I correct. Not that it matters.
“But still...”
“I don’t want to.” My voice is higher than it was thirty seconds ago. “Not tonight.”
“It’s killing me, Cass, seeing you like this. You can’t do this to a guy.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Okay, if it’s so painful for you to just kiss me and see me half-naked, we can stop doing that, too.”
“For God’s sake.” He exhales, impatient. “I’m on the baseball team. I’m in Sigma Alpha.”
Oh my God. I roll my eyes and carefully pick up his hand.
Something changes in his eyes. “Fine. Then leave.”
“What?”
“I need to get some sleep, so if you’re not going to make it worth it for me, then you might as well get out.”
“Make it worth it for you?”
“Yeah. For God’s sake, Cassie, this isn’t high school.”
I flinch. I scramble off the bed and search for my clothes. I find my dress crumpled on the floor and pull it on, my hands shaking.
“Well, will you at least walk me home? It’s four in the morning.”
“I’m really tired.” He’s still sitting up on the bed, his eyes locked on me.
“That’s fine. I can call someone.” There is no life in my voice.
I can’t find my other shoe. Where the fuck is my other shoe?
“Are you really gonna leave at four in the morning?” He grabs my wrist.
I turn to look him in the eyes. “You just said—”
His other hand is on my leg, pushing up the hem of my dress, and I understand what he means.
I rip my hand away from his grip and decide to just leave my other shoe.
“You’re such a bitch, Cassie. You fucking prude,” he says as I cross the room.
I slam the door on my way out.
I manage not to cry until I’m outside. Then mascara-darkened tears roll down my cheeks and fall in little droplets to the concrete.
The two most common pieces of advice I got when going to college were to watch my drinks and never walk home alone at night. I’ve followed number one reasonably well and number two vigilantly. And now, with my mind still fuzzy from the tequila earlier, carrying one shoe and wearing a short dress, I’m not about to break that rule.
I pull out my cell phone. My vision blurry, I dial Alex. It rings, but she doesn’t answer.
I try two more times, but am just greeted by her seventh grade voice saying, “Hi, you’ve reached Alex. Leave a message!” No, no, no, this can’t be happening. I look around, but it’s pitch-black. There are no lights along the lake.
I scroll through my contacts, until my thumb hovers over another name. He did tell us to call if we’re ever in a sticky situation.
I shake my head as I click the button. I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.
It rings three times. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon...
“Hello?” Peter sounds tired, like I woke him up. Which I probably did, at 4:00 a.m.
“Hey. I’m outside Sig A. Can you come get me?”
“Oh no. Cassie, did you try to pull something alone?” He’s fully awake now.
“What?”
“Pee on their lawn? TP the house? The flag again? Oh my God, did you try to steal their weird shield thing? Are the police there?”
“What? No.”
“Then why the fuck were you at Sig A?”
“I was with a boy.”
“Oh.”
I don’t say anything.
“Are you crying?
I nod, and then remember he can’t see me. I clear my throat. “Um, yeah.”
“What did he do?” His voice is weirdly calm, but with tension coursing through it just below the surface.
“It doesn’t matter.” My voice breaks and betrays me.
“That fuckin’—you know what, I’ll be right there. Don’t move.”
Keeping my eyes on the dark path, I try to figure out how the hell I got here. How I thought I could beat them, and it would all just be fun and games.
A dark figure runs toward me through the shadows. It’s been only about five minutes, so he must have truly sprinted from the house.
He’s barely around the corner when three more figures appear behind him. Bambi, Marco and Duncan.
“They insisted,” Peter says from a few feet away, only slightly out of breath.
When he’s close enough, he grabs my shoulders, probably a little too hard. “Are you okay?”
His eyes bore into me.
I nod.
“Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head no. “Let’s just go home. It’s not a big deal. I’m just being a stupid girl.”
Marco and Duncan run up.
Bambi is just behind them, struggling for breath. Doubled over, he looks up at me. “Cass, what’s up?”
“Nothing.” My eyes start to fill with tears. “Let’s just go home. I was kicked out and didn’t want to walk back alone.”
“Kicked out? What, for being a DTC?” Bambi turns to the other guys. “Fuck that shit. The next time one of these second-tier assholes tries to get into one of our parties, I swear to God—”
“Oh my God, no. It wasn’t because I’m DTC. It was because I was a prude, okay?”
“Some boy kicked you out of bed because you didn’t want to fuck his scrawny Sig A ass?” Bambi says.
Peter looks at Bambi like he wants to say something but then shakes his head and turns back to me. “He called you that?”
I exhale. “Yeah.”
“Which one is his room?”
“Let’s just go back...”
“Cass, answer him,” Duncan says. “That’s fucked.”
I wave my hand. “It’s not a big—”
“Pledge, you are going to show me where this son of a bitch sleeps right now or you’re gonna have so many shots tomorrow—”
My face heats up, and I try not to smile. “All right,” I say. “Follow me.”
The back door is still propped open with a plastic handle from the party earlier in the night, and we make our way through the house unnoticed.
When we get to Connor’s room I point, and Peter nods.
He approaches quietly and raises his fist. He pounds on the door. “Wake the fuck up, shmeg!”
The door still seems to be vibrating when it swings open a few seconds later. Connor stands in the doorway with tousled hair and sleepy eyes, wearing an undershirt and boxers.
Bambi’s right, he does look kind of scrawny after all, especially with Peter towering over him.
“Are you the fucker who was an asshole to my Cassie?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Connor looks from me to Peter. “Her boyfriend?”
“Ew, no. She’s my frat brother, you shithead.”
“Your what?” Connor’s eyes dart to me.
I shrug.
“She’s one of my goddamn pledges, asshole.” Peter grabs him by his collar, pulling him forward until their faces are just inches from each other. “I got the motherfucking football team and the—”
“Frisbee!” Bambi interjects, stepping between Connor and me. I try not to laugh at his valiant attempt to defend my honor.
“The motherfucking Ultimate Frisbee team and the goddamn United States Army stand behind this girl,” Peter says. “Remember that the next time you’re trying to tell her she needs to fuck you and your four-inch fucking dick just to stay in your goddamn house, you shitty excuse for a man.”
He pushes Connor against the door frame. “If it wouldn’t cost me my scholarship, I would beat your tiny West Coast beach boy ass into a pulp of quinoa and motherfucking kale.” He lets him go. “And next time I will. So don’t think about being a douche to any of the girls in DTC again! I mean—shit. Just—” He holds up one finger. “One, don’t be a douche to any girls, and—” the second finger goes up “—two, don’t mess with my frat.”
Peter turns to me. “That should cover you in, like, at least two ways.”
I nod.
“Okay, let’s go.”
He starts to walk away, then turns back and lunges toward Connor. He stops before he makes contact, but Connor flinches anyway, quickly scrambles into his room and closes the door.
“All right, let’s roll.” Peter nods to the rest of us.
We follow him back into the main room.
“Let’s fuck up some of their shit on the way out,” Duncan says.
“Good call.” Peter picks up a full handle of Taaka from under a table and hurls it at a large silver shield on the wall.
It ricochets off with a dinging sound and falls to the floor, where it explodes, spreading the smell of nail polish remover through the room.
I’m reminded that below all the big brother, mama bear protectiveness, he’s still a frat boy.
But for some reason that doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
Bambi steps on a wine bag and probably does more damage to his jeans than anything else.
Duncan starts to knock over their beer pong tables.
“You guys, follow me,” I say. I lead them into the kitchen and start knocking all the clean cups on the floor—if there’s one thing rare and precious to a frat, it’s their clean cups.
I swipe my arm over the table, and they clatter to the floor loudly. It feels so good. Adrenaline rushes to my head.
“What the fuck are you guys doing?” A Sigma Alpha is standing at the kitchen door.
We all look at each other.
“Run!” Peter says.
“Cassie,” Duncan says, gesturing toward me and bending his knees.
I jump on him, piggyback-style, and we take off, out the door and down the hill, toward the path around the lake.
They start to sing the song from bid night, and I join in, screaming the words.
We whoop and holler as we make our way across the silent campus, victorious.
I wonder if this is what it’s like to have biological brothers.
My heart is full, and for the first time, thousands of miles from where I was born, where I spent eighteen years, where my family and friends live, where I learned to walk and French kiss, I feel like I’m home.