The Bro Code

by Elizabeth A. Seibert

  “It’s fine. It was going to be super awkward trying to keep it from Carter anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No. I don’t want to—”

  “Nick, let’s go!” Carter called.

  “This isn’t over,” I told her, jogging away.

  I didn’t catch her reaction in the musky dark. Carter gestured for me to hurry up. I could only hope she felt less confused and defeated than I did.

  RULE NUMBER 15

  A bro shalt not tell non-bros the rules of the Bro Code.

  Even though I’d promised Eliza I’d make it up to her soon, the AP practice tests were upon us and so was prepping for the end of season soccer games. Every spare second I had, I spent with my dad hovering over me, making sure I wouldn’t injure myself before L-W.

  A week went by and things got even worse. Ms. Johnson was absent from teaching our PE class and the school’s sub bailed at the last minute, meaning our thirty-person physical education squad got combined with Mr. Hoover’s health and nutrition class.

  The good thing was that Austin was in that health class and he hadn’t skipped today. The bad things were:

  A. Mr. Hoover.

  B. Mr. Hoover’s eternal quest to punish me.

  C. Both Eliza and Josh Daley were in my gym class, and I had to somehow manage all of the aforementioned personalities without coming off as an A+ a-hole.

  “No way,” Austin fist-bumped me as I dropped my backpack on the desk beside him. The desks were in clumps of four. Robert and Josh could sit with us too. “We’ve got all my faves,” said Austin, “minus Carter. LOC will have to do.” Whether or not Eliza heard his acronym for Little O’Connor, she didn’t answer.

  “Ms. Johnson’s class will be joining us today, settle down, phones away, we have a lot of material to get through,” Mr. Hoover droned.

  I recognized a few others in the class, mostly from my soccer team.

  Eliza sat with her cool-nerd friends on the other side of the room. I had my back to her. Still desperate to say my piece, I hid my phone in a notebook and texted her. Talk after school? I had no idea if her phone was secretly out too, though I guessed not, because she was the extremely studious type.

  “Welcome to hell-th,” said Austin. He passed around a pack of gum.

  At the front of the room, Mr. Hoover started his PowerPoint for the day. It projected nicely onto his pristine whiteboard. You’re welcome.

  The first slide was titled The Importance of Sleep. It had a cartoon of a dude tucked into bed, counting sheep. This was going to be good. And by good, I mean horrible.

  “Guess he won’t mind if we sleep through this,” I whispered, “since it’s so important.”

  Josh snickered. Austin leaned across his desk. “Yo, I have to tell you something.”

  Mr. Hoover remained completely oblivious to the fact that almost no one was paying attention to him.

  Josh and Robert hung off Austin’s every word. With him, you never knew if he was going to say something like, “Your momma is so fat, when she went to space she became the ninth planet,” or if he was going to spill some serious tea.

  “I hooked up with Madison yesterday.”

  I blinked. Of all the things, that was the least surprising.

  “I should have asked where you guys stand,” he said, “and I get I’m the worst. She came—”

  I shook my head, signaling for Austin to shut up. While I still could barely believe it, since Madison had said she was specifically interested in Carter, Madison and Austin did kind of make sense.

  “Are you asking me for my blessing?”

  Austin blew a big bubble with his gum.

  “Go for it,” I said. “Just remember . . .”

  “Bros before hoes.” Austin slid back in his chair.

  I’d been about to remind him that Madison was a psychopath who lived for juice, but that rule—the cardinal rule—worked too.

  “Bros before motherfucking hoes.”

  Maybe it was the sudden swearing, or because we’d been pushing the envelope since his lecture started, but Mr. Hoover chose to start paying attention to us at that exact moment.

  “Mr. Maguire,” he called me out. Because who else would he torture? “Would you care to share that statement with the class?”

  I glanced around. My bored classmates had been tuned out of his lecture for so long that this conversation didn’t interest them in the slightest.

  “I said I want to go home.” I made up.

  “That’s not what I heard. What did you really say? Please share.”

  “Jesus, why?” I asked. That got my classmate’s attention. With more eyes on him than he’d ever had before, Mr. Hoover took full advantage of his opportunity to teach me whatever sadistic lesson was at the bottom of this.

  “It seems a bunch of you have woken up from your slumbers,” said Mr. Hoover. “And that Mr. Maguire would rather discuss toxic masculinity than the five stages of sleep.”

  The class groaned.

  Mr. Hoover took the yellow detention slips from his pocket, poised to rip me one. “Mr. Maguire, please repeat your statement for the class.”

  “Bros before hoes,” I said.

  “This is dumb,” Austin muttered.

  “Does anyone wish to debate him?” Mr. Hoover asked. The class stayed quiet. No one was going to risk going against it in front of everyone.

  There was one person, however, who I did want to push back.

  Instead, she finally texted me. Guess I already know what you’re going to say.

  She’d thought that comment was directed at her. Oh, no.

  I promise it’s not that. Meet me after practice?

  “What makes masculinity toxic?” asked Mr. Hoover, changing lecture topics. “Is it that men are convinced they will never be able to understand women? That society thinks men and women can never be friends? The idea that wearing pink and going shopping are emasculating?”

  He paused, as if anyone were actually going to chime in.

  “Or is it the world’s permission for boys to be boys, when they hit on girls, shove each other around, or refuse to discuss their emotions?”

  “Excuse me, I feel attacked,” Austin called out. Chuckles rose around the room.

  “Why is that?” asked Mr. Hoover.

  “Because being born with a dick isn’t something any of us can help.”

  If people weren’t paying attention before, they were now.

  “That’s it,” said Mr. Hoover, “the ‘any of us,’ language.”

  “Now I really feel attacked.”

  Mr. Hoover ignored him. “Let’s break that down. Us. Implies us versus them. And with that comes a need for power and who to take it from.”

  I zoned out. After sitting through a few more minutes of Mr. Hoover’s lecture on his hatred of bros, I got her answer.

  Meet you after practice.

  ’Twas the practice before my dad’s most feared game of the season: Littleton-West. He coached us like it was the practice before the World Cup.

  “O’Connor, your foot’s 90 degrees on those corner kicks; you’re showing us exactly where the ball’s going. Karvotsky, bend your knee more on the push kick. You need stability.”

  Coach Dad would never straight-up tell us he was nervous. That would be like a doctor saying he was worried before performing open-heart surgery. Can you imagine? The last thing you hear before going under the anesthesia is Nurse, I’m not sure about this. Truly horrific. Instead, like the surgeon, he overcompensated by nitpicking every tiny thing he could. Even making up things to nitpick, if he couldn’t find something legit.

  “Banks,” he called to Austin, who was supposed to be trying to steal the ball from me but couldn’t quite keep up, “come on. Your mom can do better than that.”

  “How would you know?” Austin mutte
red.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “I want him to share some emotion,” said Austin, “gotta prevent that toxic masculinity.” He pushed me to show he was joking.

  “Dude.”

  “Fine. He’s scary when he gets emotional anyway.”

  Austin continued to fail at stealing the ball from me.

  “What time is it?” I asked, once we were back at the sidelines, hydrating after our first drill.

  “Time to get a watch,” said Austin.

  “3:30,” Carter answered from where he squatted on his ball.

  Two hours left.

  When practice was over, I still had about half an hour before I was supposed to meet Eliza. I headed for the intercourse’s pool.

  The pool was one of the coolest and most unsafe parts of Cassidy High sports. First, it was giant—the same size as what Olympic athletes compete in, but way warmer, since old ladies could get a swimming membership at our school, and they don’t joke around.

  The scalding temperature deterred the rest of us, except the swim team when they were in season. There wasn’t even a lifeguard on duty—only people with swimming memberships were allowed to use it, and you had to pass a swim test so they knew you wouldn’t drown.

  The lone person in the pool, I tore off my sweaty shirt and headed for the diving board.

  Although I was supposed to, I didn’t shower first. No one ever came to the pool building. Who would know?

  (I realize I’m part of the problem.)

  When swimming at Carter’s house, we had this ongoing contest where whoever got the biggest splash out of a cannonball won. Austin, bless his heart, was currently in first place.

  He must come here for extra practice.

  The water splashed over me, warming up my stiff back and tired legs. I held my breath as I kicked to the other end of the pool without coming up for air. Even though Coach Dad’s soccer drills got me in the best physical shape I could possibly be in, swimming the entire length of the pool completely under water made my lungs scream.

  I hit the concrete on the other side, dizzy and panting. Geez, Maguire, you’re such a wuss.

  A minute later, I was back at it. Pushing my body to its limit was a dangerous game, but the rush of my lungs panicking and knowing I had a breaking point made me feel alive.

  When I came up for air for the fifth time, someone called across the water, “You trying to drown yourself? I think it might be working.”

  Eliza hovered by the shallow edge of the pool, wearing her maroon-and-gold volleyball uniform, etched with the outline of an owl, and flip-flops. Her hair was pulled back in a tight braid.

  I treaded water and maintained a comfortable distance. “Practicing up for the new Finding Nemo,” I shouted. “Apparently they want real actors instead of animation.”

  Eliza walked to the middle of the pool, which I took to mean that I could doggy paddle over. She crouched and dipped her palm in the water.

  “If you get the part, let me know. I would pay so much to see you in a giant orange fish costume.”

  “I’m trying out for the shark.” I played with my wet hair, spiking it up to look cool. “Are you coming in or not?”

  Eliza shook off her flip-flops, splashing the water as she dangled her legs off the edge.

  “I’ll count it,” I joked. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Um.” Her face flushed.

  Goosebumps sprouted on my exposed chest.

  I tried to get there first.

  “I’m sorry about our date that didn’t happen,” I said, “I know it’s weird with Carter—”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “Yeah, the date was awkward, but what first date isn’t?” She paused, her fingers making smooth ripples in the pool. She had such beautiful hands. “What I want the most from you, as a friend or whatever else, is respect. And what you said this morning, when you guys go around the school saying stuff like that, people listen, and it catches on. And it doesn’t feel good.”

  What? I felt like the world’s greatest idiot for not being able to follow that.

  “Bros before hoes?” she said. “It’s offensive. It generalizes all women as hoes, and it generalizes putting women second.”

  Oh, boy. “If you want more attention—” I started.

  “It’s not about attention,” she said. Her long braid scratched her shoulders as she shook her head. It’s about respect, it said.

  “Of course I respect you,” I said. “It’s just an expression, Eliza.”

  “That toxic masculinity stuff that Hoover was going over this morning,” she said. “Bros before hoes feeds into that. And it makes guys act in a way that’s actually super scary for me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like boys will be boys.”

  My throat was scratchy as I swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  The air ventilation took that moment to pause, which left a haunted silence for Eliza to fill.

  “One time, at a house party in Australia, one of my friends disappeared in the middle with her boyfriend. Everyone thought that was normal, but he came back after a while and she didn’t. The guys cheered for him when he sat with them, like he’d scored the winning home run. You know, all rowdy and high-fiving each other. I found her when I was going home, sobbing in the sand. She’d said he’d wanted to touch her in some new places, and she was uncomfortable with it, but she was drunker than he was, and he did it anyway.

  “The next few weeks, she was super torn over what to do. Some of our other friends told her that he was her boyfriend, like if she cared about him why was it a big deal? She eventually broke up with him and couldn’t be in the same room as him for the rest of the trip. Meanwhile he continued to be treated like a hero.”

  She looked at me. “That’s why I’m being weird today, and I get that it looks dramatic. But that’s what I think of when people say bros before hoes. Some totally generic dude at a party, supported by his loyal bros, who left his girlfriend feeling powerless. And stole an experience from her that she’ll never get back.”

  The more she said, the colder the warm pool water felt. Blood rushed in my ears like hearing a bomb before it denotates, as if I were still waiting for the explosion.

  She was scared of me.

  She thought I might push her too far. That I might ridicule her to save face.

  That my masculinity mattered more to me than her safety.

  “Not all guys are like that, though,” I said. Right?

  “You mean predators?”

  I paled. She was on a roll.

  “The point is,” she said, “Bros before hoes perpetuates a world where shit like that happens.”

  The chill washing through me boiled into a heat that filled my cheeks.

  “How is your friend doing now?” I asked.

  Eliza shrugged. “We didn’t really keep in touch.”

  “Does Carter know?”

  She nodded.

  And that was why Carter had been dead set on being extra nice to girls since Eliza had come back from Australia, after he’d heard that story.

  “I’ll stop saying it,” I said.

  The water around her hands went still. “What?”

  “Bros before hoes,” I said. “I didn’t mean for it to offend anyone. I don’t know about this stuff as much as you do.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and then came the bomb. “It’s hard to know who to trust.”

  “I’m really sorry. Whatever you need.”

  “Um,” she started like she was going to tell me something else, but I had to keep ingratiating myself. I should have let her talk. I couldn’t help it.

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said, feeling frantic. “Promise you’ll keep telling me about this stuff?”

  “The stuff that makes me uncomfortable?”
/>
  “Yeah. Like when I’m being an asshole.”

  “—that’s okay, Nick. I know you’re a good guy.”

  “Not sure I believe that,” I said. But I’d like to be a good guy.

  The water waved through the pool as I continued treading. “Are you coming in?”

  She looked down at her hands, whatever she was going to say was gone. Then, finally, she said, “Not if there’s a shark in the water.”

  “Fish are friends, not food,” I said solemnly.

  The water glided underneath me as I swam over and lightly splashed her shins. “Better watch out, Eliza, it looks like there’s a storm coming.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I splashed her knees a little bit harder than I had before. “Uh-oh, it looks like a big one . . .”

  “Nick, no. Don’t do it.” She jumped up. I was a lot faster and held her wrists tightly, securing her near me.

  “Can I still pull you in the pool?” I asked. “Or does that count as not okay?”

  “I’ll allow it this one time.”

  In she went, half laughing and half shrieking.

  Eliza stayed under water for about five seconds.

  “That was a big splash,” I said when she surfaced. “You could totally beat Austin.”

  Water rained over me as she kicked it in my face.

  She flipped her braid over her shoulder and started floating on her back. I lay on the surface with her.

  “Did you know that otters hold hands when they’re sleeping?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “So they don’t drift apart.”

  “That’s adorable.”

  So are you, I wanted to say. Instead I reached out to touch her fingers.

  “Wonder what the chemistry term for that is.”

  “There’s that smooth Nick Maguire we all know.”

  We stayed like that for a few peaceful minutes. Her volleyball jersey clung to her, lifting enough to reveal the fading tan on her stomach.

  Things finally felt right enough for me to say, “I’m sorry. I’ll stop saying stupid things I don’t mean, I never wanted to make you uncomfortable.”

  “I know.”

  She stood. I hadn’t realized we’d drifted to the shallow end.