Chapter VIII - Road Trip

A break from Westmore may be just what Ethan needs, but only if it were that simple.

The rumors turned out to be true. For weeks, older brothers had teased them with knowing smirks: Wait until the Road Trip. Nobody could get a straight answer on what it was—only that it was tradition, that it broke pledges down and bound them together, that it was the weekend they’d remember longest.

The week after Homecoming the orders came. Forty-eight hours. Disposable cameras issued to each pledge. Lists of stops clipped to cardboard. Clay stood in front of the Annex, tapping his pen like a drill sergeant, brothers howling behind him.

“You guys are going on a little scavenger hunt, a little trip around the Commonwealth. And you better hit every fucking stop. Bring back proof or it didn’t happen,” he barked. “Film developed and back here by noon Sunday, double prints.”

The phrase itself felt archaic—nobody outside drugstore counters even used it anymore—but everyone knew what it meant. Two sets of every humiliation: one for the scrapbook, one for the box they’d drag out at reunions.

Ethan’s stomach sank. He was already worn thin from line-ups and chores, the endless pressure of remembering names and histories, the hazing masked as “tradition.” The whole last week had been a blur, he was still raw from Homecoming. Now came this—the capstone of their first semester, a forced pilgrimage across Virginia.