The hallway outside Ethan’s room didn’t quiet down after dinner the way he expected. Showers ran on both ends of the hall, water pounding tile, steam rolling under the doors like the building itself was exhaling. Someone down the corridor blasted Counting Crows on a shelf stereo with blown-out speakers, the trebles warping each time the door opened. Laughter ricocheted down the hall, followed by a thud loud enough to shake the fluorescent light overhead.
The RA yelled something about “quiet hours start at eleven,” which earned a chorus of dramatic groans and one sarcastic, “We love you, Tyler!” from an unknown door.
Ethan stood in his doorway, towel around his neck, taking it all in. He felt both invisible and on display. Everyone here seemed to know who they were performing for, even when no one was watching.
Tyler McKay walked by with a gym bag slung over one shoulder, hair still damp from the pool. He nodded once, efficient and self-contained, the kind of gesture that meant acknowledgment rather than greeting. It landed harder on Ethan than it should have.
“You ready?” Mark asked behind him.
Ethan wasn’t. “Yeah.”
They crossed the quad together. The air was warm enough to feel heavy, thick with the smell of fresh mulch and whatever clung to the old brick buildings after a hot day. Students streamed toward the Welcome Back mixer in small clusters, groups of boys falling into loose formation without needing to speak.
The chapel lawn had been transformed into what looked like the world’s least convincing festival. Lanterns dangled from poles in uneven lines, and a banner proclaiming WELCOME BACK, GENTLEMEN sagged between two trees like a surrender flag. Folding tables overflowed with popcorn, lemonade, and bowls of pretzels that already tasted stale. A few faculty members hovered near the edges wearing name tags, smiling with that hopeful, brittle energy adults used when trying too hard.
Mark looked around with a grin. “This is awful. You’re going to love it.”
Ethan wasn’t convinced. His stomach tightened the way it always had at the start of something unfamiliar—his version of bracing for impact.
A cluster of freshmen played an awkward game of catch nearby, shouting each other’s names too eagerly. Others stood in small circles, performing confidence as if it were a team sport.
Mark introduced him to a blur of people—Walker from Richmond, Andy from Charlottesville, Ben who played golf, someone with the improbable nickname “Biscuit.” Every handshake felt like a mild test. Ethan smiled like his mother had taught him: warm enough not to look standoffish, reserved enough not to look desperate.
He wasn’t sure what these boys saw when they looked at him. His mother had always said he had “the right family polish,” but that had never fit comfortably. His father’s business—the marine supply shop he’d built from nothing—was practical, unpretentious, the opposite of lineage. His mother, though born into her Charleston pedigree, carried herself like someone maintaining a standard no one had explicitly asked her to uphold. Ethan had grown up between those worlds, fluent in both and fully at home in neither.
A hum passed through the crowd.
Not a sound—more like a shift in attention, a turn of heads, a tightening of posture.
Ethan didn’t have to guess at the cause.
Eli crossed the lawn with two juniors flanking him. He wasn’t dressed differently—just a clean T-shirt, mesh shorts, sneakers—but his presence rearranged the energy around him. Some guys straightened unconsciously; others tried not to stare. Eli didn’t appear to notice any of it.
He spotted Mark immediately and shifted his path.
“You two made it,” Eli said, clapping his brother’s shoulder.
His eyes slid to Ethan.
“Roommate,” Eli said, not unkindly.
Ethan nodded. “Hey.”
“You guys heading to the house later?” Eli asked Mark, his tone casual but unmistakably directive.
Mark grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it. Ethan’s coming too.”
Eli held Ethan’s gaze a beat longer this time, a faint flicker of something—curiosity, maybe—crossing his expression.
“If he’s with you, he’s good.”
And like that, he peeled off again, swallowed by boys eager to talk to him.
Mark nudged Ethan. “That’s a big deal.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Oh, you should.” Mark looked delighted. “You’re already not invisible. That’s half the battle here.”
Ethan wasn’t sure if that was comforting or terrifying.
The event began to dissolve. Faculty packed up the nametag table. Someone unplugged the speakers mid-song, creating an awkward, echoing silence. Groups drifted away, all headed toward the same direction—Fraternity Row.
Mark tossed his empty cup into a bin. “Delta Chi time.”
They cut across the quad, now lit by the amber glow of lampposts. Voices echoed off the brick. The night smelled like wet grass and anticipation.
As they approached Delta Chi, Ethan felt it before he saw it—music thumping, bodies moving in ways that didn’t make sense from a distance. The house was alive. Boys leaned over the porch railing shouting greetings. Red cups littered the steps like breadcrumbs.
Mark didn’t knock. He didn’t even slow down. He pushed through the front door as if it had been built for him.
Heat hit instantly—thick, humid, smelling like beer, sweat, cologne, and something sharp he couldn’t identify. The living room was a crush of bodies—older guys sprawled across mismatched couches, pledges from last year running drinks, laughter ricocheting off the walls.
Ethan froze.
Mark had to tug his sleeve. “Come on. You’re fine.”
But Ethan wasn’t fine. He was overwhelmed and underprepared. The rules of this room were different from anything he understood. He recognized the choreography—the mirrored version of his mother’s cocktail parties back home—but here it was amplified, unfiltered, stripped of polite disguise.
Jason was perched on the arm of a chair at the edge of the room, speaking low to a group of brothers. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes scanned the room—calm, steady, supervisory without seeming authoritative. Ethan realized instantly: nothing got past him.
Mark pushed Ethan forward. “Jason, this is Ethan.”
Jason smiled. “Still upright. Good sign.”
Someone stumbled into them, sloshing a drink. Jason caught the cup mid-air, handed it back, and said, “Let’s make better choices,” with the tone of someone who meant it.
Ethan admired the economy of it.
The Delta Chi living room was a blur: clashing music, half-finished conversations, shoulders brushing his as people passed, laughter erupting in pockets. Ethan did his best to follow Mark’s lead, nodding through introductions, gripping his beer too tightly, trying to understand where to stand, how to hold himself.
And then he saw Eli.
He was leaning against the far hallway doorway, arms crossed, head tilted as he listened to someone. He wasn’t the loudest one in the room—he didn’t have to be. People moved around him like water around a rock, adjusting their paths without noticing.
Ethan’s breath hitched—embarrassing, but involuntary.
He looked away quickly, trying to swallow the reaction.
The crush of noise suddenly felt like too much. His chest tightened. His grip on the beer slicked with sweat.
“I’m going to—” Ethan gestured vaguely.
Mark nodded immediately. “Porch. Go.”
Ethan slipped through the kitchen and pushed out the side door.
Night air hit him like a reprieve—cooler, cleaner. He leaned against the porch railing and inhaled until he could feel his heartbeat again.
Boys lingered on the lawn—someone vomiting behind a hedge, two guys arguing over who owed who for a pack of cigarettes, a laughing group tossing bottle caps at the streetlamp.
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. He felt stupid for needing a break so early. He felt even more stupid for caring.
The porch door creaked behind him…
The porch door creaked behind him. Ethan didn’t turn at first. He didn’t want to make awkward eye contact with someone coming out here to puke or to hook up.
A lighter clicked. The faint scratch of flint, a brief flare of orange.
“You hiding or breathing?” a voice asked.
Eli.
Ethan turned his head, just enough.
Eli stood a few feet away, one shoulder against the porch post, cigarette cupped in his hand against the breeze. The porch light caught the side of his face, turning the sharp lines softer, the curve of his jaw still visible.
“Little of both,” Ethan said. It came out rougher than he meant.
Eli huffed a soft laugh, exhaling smoke toward the yard. “First Delta Chi party?”
“First… any of this,” Ethan admitted.
“Yeah.” Eli nodded once. “It’s a lot.”
He said it so easily that Ethan almost believed him. It was strange to realize Eli remembered being new here, too.
They stood in silence for a moment, the muffled thump of bass vibrating through the floorboards under their feet. Down on the lawn, someone shouted for a ride. A bottle clinked against the curb.
Eli glanced over, really looking at him now. “Mark gave you the full sales pitch yet?”
“Some of it.”
“That tracks.” Eli flicked ash off the end of his cigarette. “Look, you don’t have to like all this to survive here. You just have to learn how to move through it.”
“How long does that take?”
Eli smiled, but there was something tired in it. “Depends what you’re trying to prove.”
Ethan didn’t have an answer for that.
His mother would have said he didn’t have anything to prove—that he’d already been raised correctly, that Westmore was simply the next proper step. His father would have said he didn’t need any of this, that work mattered more than old buildings and old names.
Standing on the porch, Ethan wasn’t sure either of them understood what this place actually was.
“You’ll be fine,” Eli said, like it was a conclusion he’d come to. “You don’t look like an idiot. That helps.”
“High praise,” Ethan said, a little surprised to find himself teasing back.
Eli’s mouth twitched, like he hadn’t expected that either.
From inside, someone yelled his name. The door swung open for a second, spilling light and noise across the boards. A brother stuck his head out.
“Bennett, we need you for a minute. Travis is about to do something incredibly stupid.”
“On my way.” Eli crushed the cigarette out on the railing with two fingers and flicked the butt into an empty cup by the door. He paused, hand on the knob.
“You get overwhelmed,” he said quietly, “step out. Don’t just disappear. It freaks the brothers out if they can’t find you. And Mark.”
Ethan nodded.
Eli gave him one last quick look—something like approval, or maybe just recognition—then disappeared back inside.
The house swallowed the noise again.
Ethan stayed on the porch long enough for his breathing to slow. He felt less like he was about to jump out of his skin, but more aware of how precarious all of this was—how easy it would be to misstep, to become the story people told for the rest of the year.
He picked up his beer, now mostly foam, and went back in.
The music hit harder after the quiet outside. The living room felt smaller, but he saw more details now—the carved paddle hanging crookedly above the fireplace, the framed composite on the wall with rows of faces frozen in time, the gouges in the hardwood where something heavy had been dragged one too many times.
Mark spotted him from across the room. “There you are,” he said, relief obvious even through the alcohol-softened edges of his voice. “Thought you’d bailed.”
“Just needed air.”
“Fair. Come on, I want you to meet a couple of guys.”
He dragged Ethan into a small circle near the back of the room—Connor from Richmond, Teddy from Raleigh, Marco from somewhere in New Jersey who wore it like a punchline.
“This is my roommate, Ethan,” Mark said. “He’s pre-med and smarter than all of us.”
“Low bar,” Connor said, raising his cup.
“Always inspiring,” Teddy added.
“Jersey, huh?” Marco asked, squinting at Ethan.
“South Carolina,” Ethan corrected.
“Better,” Marco said, as if that settled it.
The conversation flowed around him—stories about high school misadventures, complaints about the dining hall, rumors about which professors were brutal and which ones didn’t take attendance. Ethan listened more than he spoke, absorbing the rhythm of it.
Jason brushed past once, stopping long enough to pluck keys out of a clearly drunk sophomore’s hand. “No,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
The guy opened his mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. Jason squeezed his shoulder and moved on.
A commotion rose near the front door. Ethan turned to see a group of girls coming in—Waverly and Kingston, by the look of them. Sundresses. Hair just tousled enough to look accidental. Pearls that caught the light as they laughed.
Catherine was with them.
He didn’t know that yet, not as a name, but he could tell she mattered. She walked slightly ahead of the others, voice carrying, eyes already scanning the room like she knew who she was there to see.
She made a line for Eli.
“About time,” she said, looping an arm around his. Her perfume cut through the beer and smoke—something sharp and floral that reminded Ethan of the women at his mother’s club parties.
Eli’s smile shifted, brightening on command. He bent his head to hear something she said, hand automatically finding the small of her back.
Mark leaned toward Ethan. “Kingston,” he said, as if announcing a royal title. “That’s Catherine.”
“The on-again?” Connor added.
“And off-again,” Teddy said.
“Mostly on-again when alcohol is involved,” Marco put in.
They all laughed. Ethan didn’t.
He watched the way Eli’s posture changed—looser, more performative. The way Catherine tilted her head, exposing her throat just enough. The way everyone around them seemed to take half a step back, making space without being asked.
It was a scene he’d seen versions of back home—men and women choreographing themselves around each other in drawing rooms and on verandas—but here it stripped down to something more crude, more honest.
He realized, suddenly, that he was staring.
He forced himself to look away.
“Relax,” Mark said quietly. “You’re doing fine.”
Ethan didn’t ask how he’d guessed what he was feeling. He just nodded.
The night thickened. The room stopped being a series of discrete conversations and became one humid, swirling noise. The air tasted like sweat and stale beer. Someone started chanting something Ethan couldn’t make out. Someone else tripped over the edge of the rug and took down two others with him.
At some point, Ethan lost track of him and Mark as separate units. They moved together or not at all. Mark laughed with his head tipped back, eyes bright, completely at ease in the chaos.
Ethan envied it.
He also didn’t entirely believe it was real.
They left the house only when the air felt too thick to breathe and Mark’s sentences started losing subjects.
Outside, the row buzzed with its own ecosystem. Another house blasted classic rock; somewhere a bottle smashed, followed by cheers. The night had turned heavy and cool, the kind of air that clung to clothes and skin.
“Successful evening,” Mark declared as they cut back across the quad. “You didn’t puke, you didn’t cry, no one had to drag you home. Gold star performance.”
“High standards,” Ethan said.
“You’d be surprised how many people fail them.”
The lampposts haloed their faces in sickly yellow. Crickets formed a constant, low chorus beneath everything. The chapel tower loomed dark against the sky, bell silent now.
McClintock was quieter than it had been earlier. A couple of doors stood ajar, light spilling into the hallway. Someone muttered into a phone halfway down the corridor. The RA’s door was closed, a towel stuffed under the crack to block the smell of whatever he was clearly ignoring.
Inside their room, Mark kicked off his shoes and face-planted onto his bed.
“I might die,” he mumbled into the pillow.
“You’ll be fine,” Ethan said.
Mark rolled onto his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. “You good?”
“I think so.”
“Good.” His voice was already fading. “You’re gonna like it here.”
He was asleep before Ethan could decide whether he believed him.
Ethan turned off the overhead light and left the lamp on his desk burning low. The fan in the window hummed and rattled, pulling in air that smelled faintly of damp earth and cigarette smoke.
He peeled off his shirt, damp with sweat from the house, and tossed it over the back of his chair. The room was cluttered now with the evidence of two lives being unboxed—laundry bags, books, posters still rolled in tubes. It already looked less like a blank slate and more like a holding pattern.
He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
His body still felt keyed up, like the music was still reverberating somewhere in his chest. His ears rang with leftover noise. When he closed his eyes, he saw the living room again—the couch, the composite, the cluster of brothers at the fireplace, Catherine’s arm looped through Eli’s, Jason’s hand closing around a set of keys, Tyler’s head turning in his direction without stopping.
He thought of his parents.
His mother would have liked the idea of tonight if not the execution—the right people, the right connections, the boys you’ll be alongside in boardrooms later, that whole speech. She’d have hated the beer on the floor and the music too loud to carry a proper conversation. She would have told him to be charming but not eager, interested but not impressed.
His father would have said something like, Don’t let these boys make you soft. You’re here to get an education, not a social life, and then asked quietly, later, if anyone seemed like the kind of person you could trust.
None of that had been on his mind when he was in the house.
All of that crowded in now.
He thought about Eli on the porch, cigarette burning down between his fingers. The way his voice had softened a notch when he’d said First night’s a lot. The way he’d advised: step out, don’t disappear. The way he had looked at him twice, like he was filing him under something more specific than “Mark’s roommate.”
He thought about the moment Catherine walked through the door and how the entire room had seemed to recalibrate. The way Eli’s posture shifted into an easy charm Ethan didn’t entirely trust.
He turned onto his side and watched Mark’s slow, steady breathing.
This was just the first night, he told himself.
Maybe by next week he’d be able to walk into that house without feeling like his skin was on inside out.
But another thought crept in behind it, quieter, less comforting and more honest:
Something in him had recognized this place immediately.
Not just the brick and oak and bell tower—the way these boys moved, the tight bond and rough edges, the casualness that wasn’t casual at all.
He’d felt it in the spring.
He’d felt it tonight.
It scared him a little that he already wanted more of it.
The fan rattled. Somewhere down the hall, someone laughed, then shushed themselves. A toilet flushed and the building’s pipes answered with a metallic groan.
Ethan stared at the ceiling until his eyes blurred.
Whatever Westmore asked of him, he realized, it wouldn’t be small.
Whatever it changed in him, it wouldn’t be easy to undo.
He finally drifted off with the image of Eli in the doorway still bright in his mind, cigarette ember marking the moment like a small, persistent star.
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