The Lie

by Chad Kultgen

  I don’t remember exactly how long it was from the time the second semester started up until the whole rush thing began, probably a week or two, but that was really the last time I had to spend with her that was just us. We both kind of knew it, too, I think. For me that meant trying to spend every waking moment with her, and for her I could tell that meant trying to distance herself, at least emotionally, so she’d be ready to see less of me when she started the whole sorority thing.

  I guess it must have been just a few days before she started the rush process, and we were sitting in my dorm room watching TV. Dave still wasn’t back from winter break, which I found kind of weird but chalked up to some crazy born-again Christian extended celebration or some shit. And even if it wasn’t something like that, even if Dave got killed by a psychopathic murderer, I really wouldn’t have given a shit. So I didn’t think too much about it and was glad to have the room to myself.

  So we were watching TV, something horrible and pointless like Deal or No Deal or something, and Heather kind of leaned over and put her head in my lap. I rubbed her head and it was one of the last moments we had together that I remember feeling like she really loved me. Or it might have just seemed like that, because after a few seconds she sat up and started a conversation that was one of the moments where I most felt like she didn’t give a shit about me.

  She said, “So I’m going to be rushing next week.”

  I said, “I know.”

  “And you know that means that like I won’t be around as much and everything, right?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “’Kay, I just don’t want you to get freaked out that we won’t be able to spend a lot of time together and I’m probably going to be seriously exhausted most of the time we can hang out.”

  “I assumed that would be the case.”

  “’Kay, I just want to make sure you’re cool with it all and everything.”

  “Well, you know I think that shit is ridiculous and meaningless, but if it makes you happy then you should do it and I’ll be fine. It’s not like you’re breaking up with me or anything, right?”

  And I swear to fucking Dave’s bullshit Christ that there was a hitch before she answered. Either she had to think about it, or she actually did want to break up with me—so she could suck as many frat-guy cocks as she wanted without having the guilt her over head during rush week—but didn’t have the heart to can the guy who just helped her through a fucking abortion. I don’t know which. But beyond the shadow of a doubt, that cunt paused just enough for my stomach to jump up into the back of my throat.

  Then she said, “No. I love you. I don’t want to break up,” and she put her head back down in my lap and kind of squeezed me a little bit.

  Instead of seeing that pause for what it was—an indicator of her hesitation to fully commit to our relationship, aka the first drizzle in a coming shitstorm—I just felt a tidal wave of relief at the fact that she claimed she didn’t want to dump me. As long as she was mine I was okay, even if I still kind of felt like it was all teetering on the brink.

  But before I could think about any of it for too long she said, “And I know things between us have been kind of like different a little bit and seriously, I want them to be like they were in the beginning before I rush.”

  I said, “Okay.”

  “So…”

  Then she unbuttoned my pants and started sucking my dick. It was a strange blowjob. I was still a little shaken by the possibility that she might want to dump me, and I didn’t really know how to take the blowjob. Was she doing it because she really did want to normalize things between us before she went off to all of these shitty sorority parties in the next few weeks, or was she doing it because she thought it would appease me? Or, worse yet, was she doing it because she just liked sucking cock, any cock, and during rush week some frat douchebags were going to be the recipients of the same insatiable hunger she had for cock? Once she took off her clothes and started riding me, I wasn’t really able to think about any of that shit, and it’s only in retrospect that I think she actually did want to feel like she did when we first started going out, before the abortion, before she rushed.

  After we fucked it was probably like five or six in the afternoon and she just fell asleep. I know this is about as gay as it gets, but I really remember how the light, right at sunset, hit her face, and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I thought I had loved both of my girlfriends in high school, but right then, right at that moment, I knew I really hadn’t loved anyone until Heather. In retrospect I guess it was actually kind of fitting that the moment I really fell for her in a way that I would never be able to shake was at sunset. Instead of waking her up and going to get something to eat, I just sat there while she slept and looked at her, then I fell asleep next to her eventually.

  Dave must have come back in the middle of the night, because he was there the next morning when we woke up and I’m pretty sure he jerked off while he was looking at Heather or something, because he was acting really weird.

  chapter seventeen

  Rush week was seriously like one of the best weeks of my life. And Kyle was completely cool with it, which made it even more awesome. I mean I had always pictured myself being single during rush week, but Kyle was probably like the best boyfriend you could ask for in terms of being cool about it. I guess a boyfriend who was also rushing would be good, too, but for one who wasn’t rushing Kyle was great.

  So the first day was the eight-party day and you go to eight different houses for eight parties that are all like thirty minutes long or something to meet different girls and try to figure out which house you want to be in.

  My first one was Theta. They were okay, but all of the girls seemed really slutty and everybody knows they’re all drunk out of their minds like 90 percent of the time. I don’t have anything against that, it’s just like, not all the time, you know. Then I went to Chi-O, which was also kind of cool, but it seemed like the girls were a little too cliquish for me and some of them seemed really religious, too. Like this one girl, Brit Goreman, was like, “Praise Jesus,” after everything she said. Like she was like, “And the Chi-O house is maintained by a cleaning staff who comes in once a week, praise Jesus.” Seriously, don’t get me wrong, I believe in Jesus and everything, but that’s a little weird. So then my next party was Pi Phi.

  Seriously, the Pi Phis were so awesome. I mean they were all so nice and I heard that one of the girls’ dads was like Brett’s dad’s second-in-command at his company or something. And another girl’s dad was friends with George Bush. That was kind of cool. Anyway, I know the party was only like thirty minutes or whatever, but I could totally tell that I wanted to be a Pi Phi in like the first ten seconds.

  After the Pi Phis I went to the Kappas. They were pretty cool, too. All the girls in Kappa were from Texas, most of them from Dallas, so I fit in pretty well there. It didn’t really seem like any of their parents did anything cool—well, not cool, but like hanging out with the president or anything. They were just more normal, I guess. Annie, who was rushing with me, was like, “I think they suit you better,” and I was like, “Yeah, maybe.”

  Then I went to DG, which sucked, and Alpha Chi, which was like full of fat ugly girls. I really felt sorry for them and after about five seconds I left. And I can’t remember the other two I went to, maybe Gamma or something. I don’t know. It didn’t matter. I was positive I was going to be a Pi Phi.

  So after the parties there were a few after-parties that were like real parties. Annie and I ended up going to one of them and meeting a bunch of guys who were rushing, too. One of them was this cute guy named Brian Todd. He was hoping to be a Pike and he was totally into me. Annie even said so.

  He was like, “So you know once we get in, we’ll all be doing a lot of things together, parties and everything.”

  I was like, “Yeah, pretty cool.”

  He was like, “So are you guys single?”

  Annie was like, “I am,” and
I just kind of nodded. I didn’t really say I was or wasn’t. I mean I wasn’t going to cheat on Kyle or anything, I just didn’t think it was a good idea to tell people I had a boyfriend who wasn’t even rushing when I was trying to make new friends and everything who were, you know?

  So we saw Brian here and there during the rest of the party, which was awesome, by the way. It was just fun to know that all the people at the party were going to be your friends and the people you did pretty much every social thing with over the next four years. Anyway as the party kind of wound down, Brian came up to me and he was like, “Can I walk you home?”

  And even though I kind of wanted him to, I knew Kyle would be pissed if another guy walked me back home and he saw it. Also I was supposed to go by Kyle’s room to tell him about how the first day of rush went. So I was like, “Thanks, but I’ll be okay.” So then he just turned to Annie and was like, “How about you? Need a walk home?” And fucking Annie was like, “Sure.”

  I mean, I know neither of us had dibs on him or anything, but what a bitch. He was clearly like way more into me. Anyway, I went back to McElvaney by myself and went up to Kyle’s room. He was studying for some biology quiz or something.

  I tried to tell him all about the eight parties and how much I liked the Pi Phis and everything and he was so cute at pretending to care. I knew he didn’t, but it actually made me really happy that he faked it, and I kind of felt bad for some reason that I didn’t tell Brian I had a boyfriend. Like I knew that if Kyle met some girl who was like, “Do you have a girlfriend?” he’d be like, “Yes and I love her very much.” I was also drunk.

  So I took him back down to my room because I assumed Annie would be out with Brian at his room or something and I fucked him. It turned out that my assumption was wrong, though, because Annie and Brian came into my room right when I was riding Kyle. I’m sure she was going to fuck Brian and didn’t expect us to be there fucking, too. It was kind of funny I guess. So Kyle and I got dressed and all of us just stayed up talking—mainly Annie, Brian, and me talked about rushing and Kyle just kind of sat there. Brian was actually really cool about the whole thing, like he didn’t bring up the fact that I had kind of led him to believe I didn’t have a boyfriend or anything. And he didn’t seem to care that he basically saw me getting fucked by Kyle.

  So the next day of rush was the six-party day and it was like the eight-party day except you just didn’t go to two of the places you went on the day before. Basically saying, Okay, I know I don’t like these two places. And you just kind of got to know the girls in the six houses you did go to a little better. Pi Phi was still my number one choice and I didn’t really see that changing or anything. And then that night there was another party and I saw Brian again. He was like, “Hey, are you with your roommate?”

  I was like, “Yeah. I don’t know where she is, though. Around here somewhere.”

  He was like, “Cool. Mind if I talk to you for a while until she gets back?”

  I was like, “No. How was your second day?”

  He was like, “Pretty good. How about yours?”

  I was like, “Yeah, mine too. I think tomorrow is going to be really fun, though.”

  He was like, “You guys have craft day, right?”

  I was like, “Yeah.”

  And then Annie came up and was like, “Hey, Brian, what’s up?”

  And I kind of stopped listening to them because I was already starting to get pissed at Annie. I mean seriously, I knew she was slutty, but fuck, I was in the middle of a conversation with him and she just came up and c-blocked me. Whatever.

  That night I went back to Kyle’s room and told him everything that I did that day, about the six sororities I visited and everything, and he pretended to be interested again, which wasn’t as sweet as I thought it was the day before. Then he was like, “I really need to study for this biology quiz.”

  And I was like, “Okay, I’ll just sit here and be quiet.”

  And he was like, “You’re not going to go to your room?”

  And I was like, “No, I haven’t seen you all day, and I just want to hang out. So I’ll sit here and wait until you’re done studying,” which wasn’t totally true. I mean I really just didn’t want to go downstairs to my room because I thought Annie would probably be in there fucking Brian and I didn’t really want to see that. So I just sat there for like an hour until Kyle was finished, then we lay in his bed and watched TV for a while and he started to put his hand down my pants so I pretended to fall asleep. I just wasn’t in the mood to do anything sexual.

  Anyway, the next day was the four-party day where you went around to your four favorite sororities and each one of them had a craft project set up for you to do with some of the girls from the house so you could get to know them better. Theta’s was seriously lame. They were baking cupcakes. I hate cooking and I didn’t even really think cooking counted as a craft. So I baked some cupcakes with this girl named Francine Douglas, who was totally anorexic to the point of it being gross. She told me about how much she liked being a Theta and how cool the guys were in their brother frat and everything. It was all pretty normal, really. I mean I guess she was nice enough, but I didn’t really think I would end up there.

  Chi-O had this whole thing set up to make latch-hook rugs, which I thought was pretty weird. Like, I remember my great-grandmother doing latch-hook rugs when I was a little, little girl. I didn’t even know they still made the stuff you need to do latch-hook, but the Chi-O’s were like really into it, like they had brought latch-hook rug crafts back from the dead or something. And they were saying they were going to sell them and give the money to some AIDS charity. I was like, Really? Who is buying your shitty latch-hook rugs? I ended up making a rug that had a picture of a puppy on it with this girl named Amber Thomas. She basically said all the same crap Francine said at the Theta house. Chi-O was a fun place, nice girls, they hung out with hot, rich guys. And the girls were nice and everything, but I didn’t think I’d end up there either.

  Then I went to Pi Phi and they had a thing set up to make earrings that were really cute. One of the Pi Phis’ dads was a jeweler, like a big-time one in Arizona I guess, and so he gave her all this stuff to make earrings with, like real stones and wire fittings and all of these jeweler’s tools and everything. It was seriously cool. I made a pair of earrings with this girl named Kim Riley who graduated from R. L. Turner, my rival high school. We never knew each other or anything but we knew some of the same people. She had dated a guy who actually played football with one of my boyfriends. She was really cool and everyone there seemed awesome. I really liked the Pi Phis and I was pretty sure that was where I’d end up.

  And then my last craft day party was at Kappa Kappa Gamma. Like every girl there was from Texas. Probably about half of them were from Dallas, mostly private schools, though. There was no one from my high school or even my school district. Wait—one girl was from Plano, I think. Anyway they had this thing set up to make wreaths that they were also going to sell to give the money to some AIDS charity. I wasn’t too happy about making a wreath because Christmas had just passed and I was kind of over doing anything that had anything to do with Christmas. I knew that for at least a few years Christmas stuff was going to remind me of my abortion, which I was okay with, but not totally okay with yet.

  I made a wreath with this girl named Kelly Marcus. She was really nice. Her mom and dad owned a car dealership in Houston and she went to private school down there. She ended up getting into a bunch of good schools like Stanford, which is where she really wanted to go, but both her parents graduated from SMU so that’s where they made her go. I kind of felt sorry for her.

  That night there wasn’t a party so I went back to my room. Annie was there. She was like, “How was your craft day?”

  I was like, “Pretty good. I think I’m going to end up being a Pi Phi. How about you?”

  She was like, “I really like Chi-O and Theta.”

  I was like, “Cool. Have you talke
d to that guy today?”

  She was like, “Who?”

  I knew his name but I didn’t want her to think that so I was like, “That guy from the party last night?”

  She was like, “Brian?”

  I was like, “Yeah.”

  She was like, “Not today.”

  I wanted to ask her if they fucked but I didn’t. Kyle came by later and we went to Chick-fil-A. He bought me dinner and asked me about my day and still pretended to care about the things I told him about the different houses. He really was a good boyfriend before he became an asshole. I almost felt like I could tell him about Brian and about how I was like seriously getting jealous of Annie because I knew if she wasn’t fucking him already she would be pretty soon. I didn’t tell him, though.

  After we ate I went back to his room and his roommate was gone so we fucked. He didn’t go down on me, which I would have liked, but I remember it being a pretty good fuck. I thought about Brian during like one second of it, but I didn’t feel bad about it. I’m sure Kyle thought about different girls when he was fucking me.

  The next day of rush was the two-party day. You were supposed to go to your two favorite houses and sit down and talk with the girls and really get to know them and everything and then rank them as your first and second choices. I pretty much already knew Pi Phi was my first choice so I went there first. I heard that on this two-party day the girls in the houses try to make you feel attached to them by telling you some kind of really sad story about a parent or a sibling dying or something and then they tell you how their sisters helped them through it.

  At Pi Phi this girl named Deirdre Wayne was like, “Last year was my first year as a Pi Phi and it was kind of a tough year for me. After rush I thought everything would be awesome, just a bunch of parties and everything and hanging out with my sisters, but I had something kind of terrible happen to me. I was walking back to the house from a party and I know you’re always supposed to walk with a friend and if you can’t find one call a campus car, but I had been drinking and I guess I just wasn’t really thinking. So I just left by myself.