Bonus Scene: What We Never Talked About
A flashback to Eli and Jason's Freshman year at Westmore
Westmore College, Fall 1994
It was Eli’s second real line-up, at the Annex of course, just far enough away from campus to give the feeling that the brothers could do anything they felt like.
“Hey, wait up, man,” he heard Jason call from behind.
“You OK?” he said panting when he caught up.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Eli muttered, “just need some sleep.”
“I get it, I’m too wired though, want to hang out?”
The hallway still smelled like bleach and sweat, the same as Eli’s in McClintock. Down the corridor, someone’s stereo leaked a muffled laugh-track, canned voices echoing through concrete walls.
Jason shouldered open the door to his dorm room and held it open behind him. The air inside was warm, almost thick. Jason slid the window open and switched on the fan.
“I wish Luke would just leave the damn window open,” he muttered.
Eli followed, moving stiffly, his white dress shirt streaked with mud and a faint smear of blood at the collar where a brother’s ring had caught him. He dropped onto his bed without untying his tie. For a long moment, neither spoke. The radiator hissed in the corner like it was angry for them.
“Speaking of, where’s Luke?” asked Eli, breaking the silence.
Jason sat on the edge of his desk, head tipped back against the wall. His ribs still ached from the line-up, from Sullivan’s clipboard jabbing each mistake. He’d laughed through it—everyone did—but the laughter had felt borrowed, thin.
“You won’t believe this—he’s at the library, he and his lab partner will be up all night trying to cram in a whole semester of lab work they skipped. He’ll probably crash there.”
“Fucking sucks.”
Eli rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t think I can do this again,” he said finally.
Jason glanced over. “Don’t let them get to you, it goes by fast.”
“I don’t care.” Eli’s voice cracked on the word care. “I didn’t come here to get screamed at by guys who can’t spell their own names.”
Jason let the silence sit. The clock on the dresser ticked too loudly.
“You thinking of quitting?”
Eli laughed without humor. “You sound disappointed.”
“Just asking.”
The light from the window was the dull orange of a campus lamppost, flickering against the blinds. Eli’s shadow trembled on the wall—long, bent, tired.
He said, quieter, “You ever think maybe we’re not built for this?”
Jason studied him. “Built for what?”
“This.” Eli gestured vaguely: the ties, the crest pinned crooked on his chest, the entire performance. “All the shouting, the rules, the way they make you prove you belong.”
Jason thought of Sullivan’s smirk, of the older brothers slouched on the couch while pledges cleaned up around them. “I think they’re just scared of what happens if someone stops pretending.”
Eli looked up at him, surprised by the honesty. “You talk like someone who’s already quit.”
“Maybe I did,” Jason said. “I just never left.”
The words hung there. The radiator popped. Outside, rain began to tick against the window, soft at first, then steady. The room seemed to tighten around the sound.
Eli leaned back on his elbows. “You ever feel like you’re faking it all the time?”
Jason snorted. “You mean being a pledge or being alive?”
Eli smiled—small, real. “Both.”
They laughed, the first real laughter of the night. It slipped easily into quiet. The kind of quiet that usually came after truth.
“I almost told my parents I was done,” Eli said. “I even practiced the call in my head. But then I thought about what they’d say. How my mom would tell people I couldn’t cut it. How my dad would ask why I’d waste the opportunity.”
Jason nodded. “So you stayed.”
“For now.”
“Good.”
Eli looked at him, suspicious. “Why good?”
Jason searched for an answer that didn’t sound soft. “Because you’re better than they are. And you leaving won’t change anything except you.”
Eli stared at the floor. “You really think it can be different?”
“It can be if we decide it is.”
That earned him a long look—one of those assessing stares Eli had, like he was weighing whether to believe him. The rain deepened, running down the glass in crooked paths.
“You always this sure about everything?” Eli asked.
“No,” Jason said. “Just this.”
He stood, crossed to the window, and tugged the blind cord. The room fell darker, the rain louder. Behind him, he could feel Eli watching.
“Thanks,” Eli said.
“For what?”
“For not saying I’m overreacting. For not laughing.”
Jason turned. The lamplight caught the hollow under Eli’s eyes, the smudge of dirt on his jaw. Without thinking, Jason reached out and wiped at it with his thumb. The gesture startled them both. Eli froze, eyes flicking up.
“Paint,” Jason muttered. “From earlier.”
“Yeah.” Eli’s voice had dropped, quieter now. “Paint.”
Jason didn’t move his hand. He could feel the warmth of skin beneath the grime, the faint tremor of exhaustion. For a heartbeat, the air between them felt alive, charged with something neither could name.
Eli exhaled, shaky. “You ever just—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Forget it.”
Jason didn’t. He saw the question still there, raw and dangerous. And before he could decide against it, he said, “Sometimes, yeah.”
Eli blinked. “Sometimes what?”
“Sometimes I feel different too.”
That landed like a confession. The room held still around it. The radiator hissed; rain pressed harder against the glass.