By the third week of October, the pledges had learned how to move through the house without getting in anyone’s way.
That was the first real sign.
Not the pins. Not the black shirts on Wednesday nights. Not the way they stood when a brother entered the room, shoulders tightening before they seemed to realize they had done it.
It was the movement.
They carried cups close to their bodies. They flattened themselves against the hallway walls when someone came down the stairs. They knew which floorboards complained, which doors stuck in the frame, which brothers wanted cigarettes before they asked.
The house had taught them quickly.
Ethan noticed because one of them nearly collided with him outside the kitchen.
The pledge stopped short, a cardboard drink tray balanced in both hands.
“Sorry.”
One of the coffees tilted, lid trembling against the rim.
Ethan stepped back. “You’re good.”
The boy nodded too fast and moved past him, heading toward the front room.
Ethan watched him go.
He knew the face but not the name.
That bothered him for a second.
Then Connor shouted from the couch.
“Is one of those mine?”
The pledge turned without slowing. “Black, two sugars.”
“My man.”
Connor reached out and took the cup as the boy passed. He was already looking back at the television before the pledge answered.
A football game filled the screen, color washed pale around the edges of the old set. Teddy sat on the floor with his back against the couch, reading the sports section between plays. Mark had claimed the armchair and one of the pledges had claimed the floor beside it, though Ethan suspected the second claim had not been voluntary.
The boy with the coffee tray disappeared toward the stairs.
Ethan stood in the kitchen doorway a second longer than necessary.
“What?” Tyler asked.
He was leaning against the counter beside Ethan, eating dry cereal from a coffee mug.
“Nothing.”
Tyler glanced toward the stairs, then back at him.
Ethan hated when he did that. Not because Tyler was accusing him of anything. Because he usually wasn’t. Tyler simply looked, and somehow Ethan felt as if he had been caught finishing a thought he hadn’t meant to share.
“You know his name?” Ethan asked.
Tyler chewed, swallowed. “Evan.”
“You sure?”
“He’s in my history class.”
That explained it.
Or should have.
Ethan looked toward the front room again. Connor was arguing with the referee through the television. Mark leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fully invested in a game between two teams he had never mentioned caring about before that afternoon.
A pledge crossed the room carrying an ashtray.
Another followed with a trash bag.
No one told them where to go.
They knew.
“Come on,” Tyler said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere else.”
Ethan looked at the television. “It’s tied.”
“You don’t care.”
“I could.”
“You don’t.”
Tyler set the mug in the sink. A few pieces of cereal stuck to the bottom, already going soft.
“Library?”
Ethan stared at him.
“It’s Saturday.”
“I know what day it is.”
“That’s bleak.”
Tyler shrugged. “We could go into town.”
That was better.
Not good, necessarily. But better.
Ethan pushed off the doorway and followed him toward the front hall.
Mark looked up as they passed.
“Where are you two going?”
“Town,” Tyler said.
“What for?”
Tyler stopped long enough to think about it. “Don’t know yet.”
Mark grinned. “Sounds exciting.”
“You need anything?” Ethan asked.
Mark glanced around the room as if taking inventory.
“Cigarettes.”
Connor lifted his coffee without looking away from the television. “Food.”
Teddy lowered the newspaper. “To get laid.”
“Get in line,” Mark told him.
Ethan reached for the jacket hanging over the bannister. It was Tyler’s, not his. He had worn it after the chapter meeting earlier in the week when the temperature dropped and never given it back.
Tyler noticed.
He didn’t say anything.
Outside, the air smelled like leaves and chimney smoke, though no one on Fraternity Row had lit a fire yet. The maples along the street had turned unevenly, green crowded against yellow, orange catching only at the highest branches. Dead leaves scraped across the sidewalk in small bursts whenever the wind picked up.
Tyler’s truck sat half on the curb, one rear tire planted in the grass.
“You park like an asshole,” Ethan said.
“It was dark.”
“It was four in the afternoon.”
“Same principle.”
The passenger door had to be lifted slightly before it would open. Ethan knew that now. He pulled up on the handle, felt the catch release, and climbed in.
The cab smelled like cigarettes, chlorine, and the pine-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. Cassette cases filled the space beneath the radio. Most had handwritten labels. Pearl Jam. R.E.M. The Cure. One simply said ROAD in Tyler’s blocky handwriting.
Ethan picked it up.
“What’s this?”
“Road tape.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“It’s for driving.”
“I had gathered.”
Tyler reached over and took it from him, his hand closing briefly around Ethan’s before the cassette came free.
The contact lasted no more than a second.
Still, Ethan felt it after Tyler pulled away.
Tyler pushed the tape into the deck. The machine swallowed it with a mechanical clunk, followed by several seconds of hiss before the first guitar line came through the speakers.
“Where are we going?” Ethan asked.
Tyler backed off the curb without checking the mirror.
“Town.”
“We’re already doing this conversation again.”
“Thought you liked routine.”
Ethan looked over.
Tyler’s mouth shifted at one corner.
It wasn’t quite a smile.
That made Ethan laugh harder than the line deserved.
They drove with the windows cracked, the heater running against the cold air because Tyler claimed it balanced out. Campus slipped behind them quickly. The brick buildings disappeared beneath the trees, then Fraternity Row, then the stone gate carved with the college name.
For the first few miles they barely spoke.
They didn’t need to.
That was new enough that Ethan still noticed it.
With Eli, silence had always carried weight. Something hidden. Something waiting to be said and usually left unsaid.
With Tyler, silence felt like part of the conversation.
Tyler tapped two fingers against the steering wheel in time with the music. Ethan rested one foot against the dashboard despite knowing Tyler hated it.
“Feet down.”
“You’re not my father.”
“My father respects upholstery.”
Ethan lowered his foot.
A few minutes later, he put it back.
Tyler glanced over but let it stay.
They stopped at a drugstore near the courthouse because Connor had requested cigarettes and because neither of them had come up with a better purpose for the trip. The store smelled like floor wax and cheap perfume. Halloween candy filled an aisle near the entrance, orange bags stacked beneath cardboard ghosts whose eyes had been punched out badly at the factory.
Tyler headed toward the pharmacy counter.
Ethan followed.
“You sick?”
“No.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Shampoo.”
“You drove fifteen minutes for shampoo?”
“It’s cheaper here.”
“You’re eighty years old.”
Tyler picked up a bottle, examined the label, and returned it to the shelf.
“You use whatever’s in the shower.”
“It’s communal.”
“Exactly.”
Ethan watched him compare two nearly identical bottles as if one contained the secret to a better life.
“You know there are pledges who would’ve done this for you.”
Tyler kept reading the bottle.
“I know.”
“They’re probably doing it for somebody right now.”
“Probably.”
Tyler put one bottle in the basket.
Ethan waited.
Tyler looked over.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s twice today.”
“I’m allowed to have nothing.”
“You’re not good at it.”
They moved toward the register.
Ethan grabbed Connor’s cigarettes from the clerk and asked for a pack for himself. Beside the register, a wire rack held disposable cameras, batteries, blank cassette tapes, and copies of the local paper.
Tyler picked up a pack of gum.
The clerk rang everything through, barely glancing at them.
Outside, the afternoon had turned colder. Ethan shoved his hands into Tyler’s jacket pockets and found a crumpled receipt, two quarters, and a book of matches from a bar in Richmond.
He pulled out the matches.
“When were you at the Village?”
Tyler glanced at them. “Spring.”
“With Jason?”
A pause.
“Yeah.”
Ethan turned the matchbook over in his hand. The answer did not bother him exactly. Or it bothered him in a way he did not want to examine while standing in a drugstore parking lot.
He put the matches back.
Tyler unlocked the truck.
“You hungry?”
“Always.”
“There’s that diner by the highway.”
“The one with the waitress who hates Connor?”
“She hates everybody.”
“Fair.”
They climbed back into the truck.
As Tyler pulled out, Ethan looked at the college road sign pointing back toward Westmore.
The diner sat just outside town where Route 15 widened before disappearing into farmland, the kind of place Ethan suspected had looked exactly the same for twenty years.
Chrome stools lined the counter.
A cigarette machine stood dark in the corner, unplugged but never removed.
The waitress behind the register looked up as they walked in.
“Just two?”
Tyler nodded.
She grabbed two menus she knew they wouldn’t open.
“Booth by the window.”
The place was nearly empty. A retired couple lingered over coffee near the front. Two state troopers occupied the counter, speaking quietly without looking at each other. Somewhere in the kitchen someone dropped a pan, followed immediately by a voice shouting, “I’m fine.”
Ethan slid into the booth across from Tyler.
“You realize we drove twenty minutes for a cheeseburger.”
Tyler looked around.
“They’ve got pie.”
“I take back everything I said.”
The waitress returned with two glasses of sweet tea.
“You boys from Westmore?”
Tyler smiled.
“That obvious?”
“I’ve waited on students for twenty years.”
She looked at Ethan.
“You the loud one?”
Tyler answered before Ethan could.
“No.”
She laughed.
“I figured.”
When she disappeared toward the kitchen Ethan leaned back against the booth.
“I like her.”
“You like everybody.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“No?”
“No.”
Tyler folded his straw wrapper into quarters.
“You liked Professor Reynolds.”
“He gave me a B-minus.”
“You still liked him.”
“I respected him.”
“You liked Mrs. Patterson in the bookstore.”
“She gave me free coffee.”
“You liked…”
“Okay.”
Tyler nodded once.
“Thought so.”
Their burgers arrived quickly.
Neither spoke much for the first few minutes.
Hunger usually won.
Outside the window, cars drifted past in no particular hurry. A tractor crawled along the shoulder pulling a trailer stacked with square hay bales. October sunlight settled low across the fields, making everything look warmer than it felt.
Ethan reached automatically for Tyler’s fries.
Tyler slapped his hand away.
“You have your own.”
“I wanted yours.”
“They’re identical.”
“They’re yours.”
Tyler shook his head.
“You make absolutely no sense.”
“So I’ve been told.”
A minute later Tyler pushed half the basket toward him anyway.
Neither acknowledged it.
—
“You going home for Thanksgiving?” Tyler asked.
“I guess.”
“You don’t sound excited.”
Ethan shrugged.
“My mother’s already planning the menu.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“No.”
He stared out the window.
“It’s just…”
He searched for the words.
“I don’t know.”
Tyler waited.
He was good at waiting.
“It feels different.”
“Since summer?”
“Yeah.”
Tyler nodded.
“I know.”
“My room still looks exactly the same.”
“So does mine.”
“My mom keeps asking if I need anything.”
“You don’t.”
“I know.”
Ethan smiled faintly.
“I need detergent.”
“You’ve got that now.”
“I meant… I don’t know.”
Tyler looked toward the window.
“When I went home after freshman year…”
He stopped.
“…it felt like I’d borrowed somebody else’s life.”
Ethan looked up.
Tyler wasn’t smiling.
“I kept thinking I was forgetting something.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
A small laugh escaped him.
“I’d wake up expecting Connor yelling down the hall.”
“Eli playing that terrible music.”
“Mark stealing food.”
“Jason making coffee at six in the morning.”
Tyler nodded.
“I missed all of it.”
Ethan looked back out toward the road.
He understood.
More than he wanted to admit.
On the drive back they took the long way without discussing it.
County roads wound between harvested tobacco fields and weathered barns leaning slightly farther every year.
The cassette clicked over to the second side.
Neither bothered changing it.
The sun had begun dropping behind the trees when Tyler turned onto a gravel overlook above the river.
It wasn’t much.
Just enough room for three or four trucks before the road narrowed again.
Tyler shut off the engine.
Silence settled around them except for the ticking of cooling metal.
“You come up here a lot?” Ethan asked.
“Sometimes.”
“With people?”
“Usually not.”
Ethan leaned his elbows on the dashboard.
The river caught the last light of the afternoon, winding through the trees like polished glass.
“I would’ve killed for this freshman year.”
Tyler looked over.
“What?”
“Five minutes.”
“From what?”
Ethan laughed softly.
“Everything.”
The parties.
The house.
Wondering if I was saying the right thing every five seconds.”
Tyler nodded.
“I remember.”
“I thought if I missed one night…”
“…something important would happen.”
“Exactly.”
They sat quietly.
A pickup rumbled past on the road behind them without slowing.
Finally Tyler spoke.
“You know what I realized?”
“What?”
“I don’t miss much anymore.”
Ethan turned.
“I like football games.”
“I like hanging out at the house.”
He shrugged.
“But if I don’t…”
“…it’s still there tomorrow.”
Something loosened in Ethan’s chest.
That was it.
He’d been trying to name the feeling for weeks.
Freshman year everything had felt urgent.
Sophomore year…
Life had become something you could leave for an afternoon.
And somehow that made it feel more permanent.
By the time they pulled back onto Fraternity Row the porch lights had come on.
Music drifted from somewhere inside the house.
A television shouted from the chapter room.
As they climbed out of the truck Ethan noticed three pledges carrying boxes from one end of the house to the other.
One of them was the kid from that morning.
Evan.
He balanced two heavy cartons against his chest while another pledge held the front door open.
Without thinking, Ethan started toward them.
“I got one.”
Evan smiled.
“We’re okay, sir.”
The answer was polite.
Automatic.
Almost rehearsed.
Ethan hesitated.
For a second he almost insisted.
Then he stepped aside.
The pledges disappeared into the house.
Tyler watched them go.
“You coming?”
Ethan looked after the closing door.
“Yeah.”
He followed Tyler inside.
But for the rest of the evening he couldn’t quite remember why carrying two boxes had suddenly seemed like something he ought to do.
By November, the pledge class had stopped looking terrified.
They looked tired instead.
There was a difference.
Terrified people looked around constantly, searching for whatever they had missed.
Tired people simply kept moving.
The brothers had settled into the rhythm almost without noticing.
Chapter Meeting on Monday.
Study Hall during the week.
Football on Saturday.
The occasional party.
Somebody was always asking a pledge to pick up ice, run to Taco Bell, make another pot of coffee, find extension cords, carry chairs, clean ashtrays.
None of it seemed remarkable.
That was the remarkable part.
The weather turned cold enough that everyone drifted toward the chapter room after dinner.
The fireplace had been cleaned weeks earlier, and somebody finally decided it was worth lighting.
A fire cracked softly while half a dozen brothers watched Monday Night Football.
Someone else had claimed the pool table.
Music drifted down from the second floor.
Ethan sat on the floor beside the coffee table pretending to read for his American literature seminar.
He’d been on the same page for nearly twenty minutes.
Connor looked over from the couch.
“You studying?”
“I’m trying.”
“You’ve read that paragraph four times.”
“I’ve read it six.”
“That’s worse.”
“It is.”
Connor tossed him a bag of peanut M&M’s.
“For morale.”
Ethan caught it one-handed.
“I didn’t know we had morale.”
“We don’t.”
Connor grinned.
“But we’ve got chocolate.”
Across the room Mark was explaining Parents’ Weekend plans to three of the juniors.
“…the alumni breakfast starts at nine, so everything needs to be cleaned Friday night.”
One of the pledges appeared almost instantly with a legal pad.
Mark looked up.
“Oh. Evan.”
“You needed something?”
Mark smiled.
“Not yet.”
The freshman nodded once.
“I’ll be downstairs.”
He disappeared before anyone else spoke.
Connor watched him leave.
“They’re getting jumpy.”
“They’re supposed to,” Mark answered.
“It keeps everybody organized.”
Tyler closed the book he’d actually been reading.
“I think they’re organized.”
Mark looked over.
“You getting soft?”
“I’ve always been soft.”
“No.”
“You’ve always looked soft.”
Connor laughed loud enough that someone upstairs yelled for them to keep it down.
Mark pointed toward Tyler.
“You would’ve made a terrible pledge trainer.”
“I know.”
“You let them get away with murder.”
Tyler leaned back in his chair.
“I don’t think carrying my laundry upstairs is preparing somebody for life.”
A few people laughed.
Mark smiled too, but there was a question underneath it.
“So where’s the line?”
Tyler shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“I just know it’s probably somewhere before my socks.”
The room laughed again.
The conversation drifted away.
No one seemed bothered.
But Ethan caught the look Mark gave Tyler before turning back to the committee schedule.
Not annoyed.
Curious.
As if they had begun answering the same question differently.
Later that night Ethan wandered into the kitchen looking for something sweet.
The refrigerator held half a chocolate cake left over from somebody’s birthday.
He cut two uneven slices.
When he turned around, Evan was standing at the sink washing coffee mugs.
“You want one?”
The freshman looked surprised.
“I can wait.”
“I’m not asking if you can.”
Another pause.
“You want cake?”
A slow smile.
“Sure.”
Ethan handed him one of the paper plates.
The two of them stood in silence for a minute, eating leftover birthday cake under fluorescent lights that hummed faintly overhead.
“You getting any sleep?” Ethan finally asked.
Evan laughed through a bite.
“Enough.”
“Liar.”
“A little.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I know.”
Evan hesitated.
“Were y’all this busy?”
Ethan almost answered immediately.
Then he remembered.
The errands.
The meetings.
The constant feeling that everyone else understood something he didn’t.
“Yeah.”
“Worse, probably.”
Evan nodded.
“I figured.”
After another minute he set the empty plate in the trash.
“Thanks for the cake.”
“Good night.”
“You too.”
The back door closed behind him.
Ethan looked around the kitchen.
The sink was empty.
The counters had already been wiped down.
Someone had swept the floor.
Everything looked exactly as it should.
He couldn’t remember who had done it.
A week later Thanksgiving break arrived almost by surprise.
The campus emptied with astonishing speed.
By three o’clock Fraternity Row felt strangely hollow.
Tyler slammed the tailgate of his truck.
“You ready?”
Ethan nodded.
“I guess.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’ll be back Sunday.”
“I know.”
“It’s four days.”
“I know.”
Tyler rested his arms on the top of the truck bed.
Neither of them seemed in much of a hurry.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Ethan said.
“The home phone?”
“Unless you’re on AOL.”
Tyler laughed.
“Our internet barely works.”
“So does ours.”
“I’ll check.”
A comfortable silence settled between them.
Finally Tyler reached into the truck and pulled out Ethan’s gray Westmore sweatshirt.
“You forgot this.”
Ethan looked at it.
“I thought you stole it.”
“I borrowed it.”
“For a month?”
“I was cold.”
Ethan took the sweatshirt.
Their hands brushed.
Again.
Brief.
Accidental.
Neither moved away immediately.
Connor’s voice echoed from the porch.
“If you two are done exchanging wardrobes, some of us are trying to leave before Christmas.”
The moment disappeared.
Tyler stepped back first.
“Drive safe.”
“You too.”
Ethan watched the truck pull away until it disappeared beyond the stone entrance to campus.
Only then did he turn toward his own car.
The ytard was almost empty now.
Leaves skittered across the brick walkways in the afternoon wind.
For the first time since arriving at Westmore, going home felt less like returning to his life…
…and more like taking a short trip away from it.
Further Reading
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