The Lie

by Chad Kultgen

  “I remember my phone rang and I stopped walking to get it out of my purse. I remember looking down into my purse and trying to find my phone and then the next thing I knew I woke up the next morning right there on the street where I had passed out.”

  I was like, What the fuck?

  She was like, “I got up off the ground and I just started crying because I knew that I had narrowly escaped being raped. Someone had slipped a date rape drug into my drink at the party and I had blacked out. If I hadn’t left the party, the rapist would have gotten me for sure. When I got back to the house, I told all my sisters and they were so supportive. I mean, it’s hard to talk about even now. But knowing that I have the love and support of everyone here makes it easier. Thank you.”

  A couple of the girls clapped until they realized it was awkward. I just didn’t get it. I mean she seriously set up the story to be like she was about to get raped or something, and then it just turned into her passing out because she drank too much. From what she said she probably didn’t even get roofied. Seriously. I still wanted to be a Pi Phi, but that story was seriously lame.

  So after the story we had to hang around and talk to the girls, try to find out who your big sister might end up being if you were a pledge, that kind of stuff, and I ended up talking to a girl named Karlie Hindenwagner. She seemed really cool and down-to-earth, so at one point I was like, “That story Deirdre told, wasn’t that kind of retarded?”

  She was like, “What do you mean?”

  I was like, “I mean, nothing really happened to her. She just drank too much, right?”

  She was like, “Well, yeah, she drank at the party, but what happened to her was very serious. She was almost raped.”

  I realized I shouldn’t have said anything so I was just like, “Right. I know,” and then I changed the subject to what the first Pi Phi party is after they make decisions on who their pledges are going to be. It was kind of an awkward conversation after that, but not too bad.

  Then I went to Kappa Kappa Gamma. The Kappas said that every year on this night they ask all the sisters to go around and share something that no one in the house knows about them and no one can judge them for what they say. They just had to accept their sisters for who they were. They said they like to do it in front of the prospective pledges to make them feel closer, and the prospective pledges weren’t allowed to share any of their own stuff, but if they became Kappas they’d be doing it next year. I thought it was kind of a cool idea.

  So the first few girls said stuff like they cheated on their boyfriends or they smoked pot when they were thirteen or they stole money from their mom’s wallet or any other kind of crappy little thing that no one really cared about. Then this girl named Andrea Corbin stood up and was like, “Okay, so what I’m about to tell you guys is something that no one other than me knows, not my family, not any of the boyfriends I’ve had, none of you guys. No one.”

  Then she took like this deep breath and she was like, “Over this past summer I, um—” Then it looked like she was about to cry and this other Kappa was like, “It’s okay, Andrea, we’re here.”

  So Andrea was like, “This was back home in Denver. It happened last summer. I met this guy. He was cool enough and everything and so we started going out and I told him from the beginning that it was just going to be a summer thing. I was coming back for my junior year and I knew that I really wanted to start dating guys like seriously, you know, looking for someone who might be a good husband and everything. And the guy was cool with that, so we just kept it casual. About a month before break was over, I found out that, um, I was pregnant. And as you can see now…I’m not because I, um, had an abortion before last semester started.”

  She started tearing up and all of the girls moved in and hugged her and then she totally lost it and started really crying. I looked around at some of the other girls who were rushing. None of us really knew what to do. Seriously, I didn’t know why I did it at the time, but I stood up and walked over and joined in the group hug, too. And I couldn’t help it, I started crying. I knew it was because I hadn’t really dealt with what I did over Christmas break at all. I hadn’t really had the time, with rush week happening so fast after the break ended and everything. So I just kind of let it all out and hoped they didn’t think I was some kind of emotional basket case. Some of the other girls who were rushing got up and joined in, too, so I wasn’t too worried about looking weird or anything.

  After Andrea told everyone about her abortion, they just ended it. I think they knew after her story it would just be seriously in bad taste to keep going around and talking about stealing your parents’ car to drive to your boyfriend’s house. So we all kind of went off and talked to different girls.

  I talked to Andrea. I didn’t think I was going to, but once we started talking I told her about my abortion—well, my last one. She gave me a big hug and was like, “It feels good to tell somebody, doesn’t it?”

  I was like, “Yeah.”

  She was like, “I always thought that if I ever had to go through something like that, the guy would at least be around, you know, so you’d have someone to help you through it.”

  I realized she thought that I didn’t have anyone with me through the whole thing, even though I never said anything to back that up. I couldn’t really tell her otherwise at that point, though, so I was just like, “Yeah.”

  That night I went back to McElvaney and talked to Annie a little while about how her day was, but I was mainly thinking about Andrea and wondering how many other girls had had abortions. And I hadn’t really thought about it until that night, but I wondered if both of the abortions I had were in heaven. I mean, I believe in God and everything, but I don’t really think about him all that much. And I guess it was because I started thinking about how many girls have probably had abortions without anyone knowing, and then I started thinking about how many babies that is and where they all must go when they get aborted. I don’t know. Kyle wanted to meet up but I told him I was really tired and just wanted to go to sleep, which was pretty much the truth.

  The next day was the Pig Run, which is also bid day—you know, you find out which house accepted you. I was pretty sure I was going to get into Pi Phi, but I kept thinking about how Andrea told everyone she had an abortion and it really did make me feel a little more okay about being a Kappa if I didn’t get my first choice.

  So, basically, we all had to put on white shirts or sweaters and go down to the Hughes-Trigg Student Center. When we all got there they had a seating chart that was in alphabetical order. So I found my seat next to this kind of fat girl who was seriously going to be a Gamma Phi or an Alpha Chi. I kind of felt sorry for her. Anyway after we all sat down a Panhellenic spokeswoman came out and gave a speech for like twenty minutes and then told us that our bids were taped to the undersides of our chairs. Then they did like a ten-second countdown and we all opened them at the same time. I was pretty excited. I mean inside that envelope was going to be the place I lived for the next three years. So I opened it and it said that I had been invited to join the sisters of Kappa Kappa Gamma. I was kind of bummed that I wasn’t going to be a Pi Phi, but like I said, Kappa wasn’t bad or anything, it just wasn’t my first choice.

  So after we all found out which houses we were in, of course, we were all screaming like maniacs and then the Pig Run part came. Basically we all ran out of the student center screaming and everything and we kept running until we all got to whichever house we were now in down on the row. And all along the route we had to run there were frat guys with Super Soakers and water balloons and whatever. It sucked, because it was seriously cold. Luckily I didn’t really get hit that bad, but the girl who was next to me for pretty much the whole Pig Run had giant boobs and the guys soaked her shirt as soon as she came out of the student center. I kind of felt sorry for her. I guess they call it the Pig Run because it used to be a lot worse than just water. Like the guys used to throw eggs, and there were some stories of a few different frats
saving up their shit for like weeks on end and then bringing it in plastic bags and throwing it on the girls. But I guess the school kind of outlawed that at some point because we just had to deal with water.

  Once we got to the row it was like one of the most awesome parties of all time. Every house had a DJ, and when I got to Kappa all of the sisters were there and everything and I saw Andrea and talked to her a little bit and it was just really cool. I didn’t see Annie at all that day except in the very beginning of the Pig Run when we were in the student center. I can’t remember what her first choice was but I found out later she got into DG, which was cool. Oh yeah, and I found out that Brian Todd got into Pi Kappa Alpha.

  After the initial party kind of wound down we all went inside the house, which was awesome, and we got a full tour and everything. The rooms were really nice and I knew I would like living there my sophomore year.

  After the tour they sat us down and this girl, Summer Flohr, gave a little speech to us about how we were the Kappa pledge class for that year, and then we found out who our big sisters were going to be. Mine was Andrea, which I figured would probably happen, and I was pretty happy about it. I felt like she and I could seriously become really good friends.

  And that was basically it. I went back to the dorms that night and told Kyle everything—well, not that Andrea had an abortion, too, or anything like that, but that I had a cool big sister and that I liked the house and everything. He seemed like he was really happy for me. He tried to tell me about some biology quiz he did really well on or something but I think we both knew that his quiz was kind of unimportant in comparison to the stuff I had going on, so we didn’t talk about it too much. I think he just wanted it to seem like he had things going on in his life that mattered too, or something.

  I was pretty excited that night, like way too excited to even think about fucking, but Kyle wanted to pretty bad so we did. He went to sleep like almost immediately after and I just lay there for a while looking at the ceiling thinking about what it was going to be like to be a Kappa.

  chapter eighteen

  Rush week, for me, was little more than a series of inconveniences I had no choice but to endure in order to appease my father. I ignored many of the mandatory events during rush week and chose to attend only those that had anything to do with Alpha Tau Omega. It was understood by all parties involved that I was to be a member of Alpha Tau Omega’s pledge class with no possibility of alteration. Therefore, I saw no reason to partake in any other rush activities. And it barely mattered, I think, that I partook in the activities of Alpha Tau Omega.

  So at the end of the rush week I was indeed inducted into the Alpha Tau Omega pledge class and introduced to my big brother, Greg Simmons. His father had worked for mine when I was in high school. I’m not certain what it was that his father did, but I remembered Greg from various company family functions that I was required to attend.

  Greg was one year older than me and was in line for the presidency of Alpha Tau Omega his senior year. It was obvious that he was immediately threatened by my arrival. Upon his announcement that he was to be my big brother, he struck up a conversation in which he claimed to have heard that I was more than well-endowed. This was true. He thought of himself as having a larger-than-average cock. So, of course, he pulled his dick out and commanded me to do the same. Although mine was easily an inch or so larger, I refused his demand. This refusal of an upperclassman’s direct command during your time as a pledge would have been enough to dismiss any other pledge from the house. But because I was my father’s son, my dismissal was not up for consideration. Refusing Greg’s demand and having no disciplinary action levied against me was more effective than if I had whipped out a three-foot-long dick and fucked him in the ass. He knew this.

  As the rest of the Alpha Tau Omegas watched, waiting for Greg’s reaction to my defiance, he took off his shirt. Greg was a douchebag with such an obscene lack of self-awareness that he was rumored to have allowed a fellow fraternity brother to tattoo a phrase across his shoulder blades with a homemade tattoo kit. This rumor’s truth was confirmed when he showed me the tattoo and explained to me that we’d measure cocks later and he was “cool with me” as long as I, too, abided by the only credo he derived any value from in life. He pointed to his tattoo, which read, “Bros Before Hos.”

  As I stared at Greg’s tattoo, wondering how I’d come to be associated with the most basic example of everything that is wrong with American youth, I became aware of a choice that somehow I never seemed to know existed before. I could reject this. I could tell my father I had no interest in becoming a member of his father’s fraternity or in working at his father’s company or in marrying a version of his father’s wife, all things he had committed to blindly. And somehow the realization of this choice only made it easier to do nothing, to let events occur as though they were beyond my control. I alone had the ability to change my situation at any time, to end the lie. And somehow just understanding that the choice existed meant I knew the outcome. It was just a matter of time. Eventually I felt I would disassociate myself from all of this—not now, but eventually.

  Very possibly my father’s reaction to such a decision would entail the loss of many privileges to which I had become accustomed. So I did nothing. I let the lie play on and nodded my head in agreement with Greg when he demanded my allegiance to his tattoo, knowing that some day I would end this.

  chapter nineteen

  I didn’t see too much of Heather for the rest of the semester. We’d hang out once or twice a week, and fuck the same amount. I guess that actually is seeing each other pretty regularly, but it didn’t seem like it after we’d spent basically every day together for most of the first semester. She was always busy with her sorority shit. She kept telling me it would get better once she was a full Kappa, that it was just really bad during the time she was a pledge.

  When I did get the chance to spend a day with her during the week I’d never want her to leave. I felt myself getting a little clingy and I knew that was the worst thing I could do while she was having all of these new experiences and meeting new people. The last thing she’d want would be the boyfriend who was holding her back from “finding herself” and whatever other crap she saw on Oprah. I couldn’t help it, though. I just wanted to spend time with her like we used to.

  And the time we did spend together wasn’t like it used to be either. I could tell we were starting to not have much to talk about. She’d tell me about all the stuff she was doing at her sorority, but I didn’t really give a shit. I tried to fake it, but she could probably tell. I don’t know how many times she thought I could listen to stories about one of her sorority sister’s dad’s being in the fashion industry and being able to get everyone she knows some kind of special Zac Posen bag or some shit.

  I just focused on my classes mostly for the rest of that second semester. I thought buckling down and studying hard would help take my mind off missing Heather when I didn’t see her for a few days at a time. When I wasn’t studying I hung out with Brett a lot. He seemed to be hating all the shit he had to do for his fraternity, so he looked for every opportunity he could get to just hang out and do nothing with me. For the most part studying and listening to Brett complain about his fraternity worked.

  I guess the thing that was the hardest for me to understand about the rest of that semester was why Heather didn’t dump me. If she had, I think I would have been okay. It would have crushed me, but I would have been okay in the long run. I would have licked my wounds, gotten over her, and been okay. But she didn’t dump me. Maybe it was because we only saw each other a few times a week and she didn’t deal with me enough to realize she didn’t like me anymore. I was easier to deal with in small doses. I don’t know.

  What I do know is that for the entire second semester we were still officially together, a couple, boyfriend and girlfriend, even if we didn’t see each other all the time, and I think that’s what fucked me up the most. I got used to the idea of us bein
g us. Even if our relationship wasn’t as good as it was in the beginning, that second semester gave me another four or five months to settle into the idea that Heather wasn’t going to leave me, that she really loved me, which obviously wasn’t true but it felt true. It was that second semester that made the end, when it finally came, so much worse than it would have been if she just would have dumped me.

  I remember one night, when she was still a pledge, but right near the end of being a pledge, we went out to dinner. I didn’t have too much money, but I had managed to save up a little bit from working at Mac’s Place, so I had a few hundred I could spend. She had been talking about how all of the girls in her sorority were rich, or their families were, and she was always going with them to the fancy restaurants and things, so I thought I’d try to compete with her sorority life by taking her out to a nice place. One of Brett’s dad’s favorite places to eat was a steak place called Nick and Sam’s. I knew a bunch of the guys who worked for him would always eat there, and I thought there might even be some chance that one of the girls in Heather’s sorority might be there with her parents or something. So I made us a reservation and told her I had a surprise for her.

  She had some meeting to go to for her sorority that night and then she came back to McElvaney. She was actually pretty excited about the surprise, which I almost didn’t expect. It seemed like the only thing that she got enthusiastic about at that point was her sorority.