Chapter 56
DEBBIE
The boy steps aside to let me enter the fraternity house. He has an open, friendly expression on his face, because he has no idea what I’m planning to do. If he knew, he wouldn’t let me past the front door. Actually, he’d probably be calling the police.
“My name is Lennox,” he tells me. “I’m the president of the fraternity.”
“Is Lennox your first name or last name?”
He laughs. He seems sweet and earnest, but so did Hutch. “First name. My last name is Newberry.”
“Like the comic store.”
He nods. “No relation.”
I look around the small space of the living area.
It contains a few ratty sofas that look like they came from the curb and a coffee table with books stacked on it.
The top one is labeled Statistical Thermodynamics.
This place looked so different on that night that changed my life.
If somebody transported me here and didn’t tell me where I was, I never would’ve known.
I suppose it looks different when it’s nighttime, filled with loud music and the stink of alcohol and cigarettes in the air.
“So what’s the article about?” he asks me.
“It’s just a profile of fraternity life,” I explain. “We picked Zeta Pi randomly, and we just want to know what it’s like to live here.”
I expect him to remark on the fact that it sounds like a very boring article, but instead he nods like this is completely reasonable.
“Do you want a tour?” Lennox offers.
I hesitate. I do want a tour. That’s part of the reason I’m here, but part of me is scared that I might get triggered, remembering what happened to me that night. The last thing I want is to have a panic attack in this frat house.
But I came here for a purpose. And I’m not leaving until my work is done.
“I’d love a tour,” I tell him.
Lennox smiles eagerly, gesturing around the room we’re standing in. “This is our living area,” he says. “We spend a lot of time hanging out here, mostly talking. We have our meetings in the basement.”
“Is the basement where you have parties?” I ask, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.
If Lennox notices the subtone, he doesn’t let on. “Yeah. It’s a big open space so it’s perfect for parties. We don’t get too wild though. It’s MIT after all.”
He laughs at his own joke, but I don’t join him.
“All the fraternity brothers here are friends,” he tells me. “Some are obviously closer than others, but I consider every member of Zeta Pi to be my brother. We look out for each other.”
“And if one of you did something wrong, for example”—I poise my pen at the notepad I cleverly grabbed at a drugstore on the way over here—“would all the brothers be held accountable?”
He takes a moment to think over that question. “Yes, I think we are. Every member of Zeta Pi represents all of us. If one of us does something wrong, that’s a reflection on the entire fraternity.”
I wonder if the other brothers knew what Hutch was up to. I highly doubt it was the first time he did something like that. He was so smooth. In retrospect, it was all very rehearsed.
If one of us does something wrong, that’s a reflection on the entire fraternity.
If the other brothers knew Hutch was doing something wrong, they would have covered it up.
They wouldn’t want his actions to reflect badly on all of them.
A fraternity could have their charter revoked over something like that.
Lennox takes me around the first floor of the house. He shows me the kitchen and a little backyard area. It’s all interminably dull, but I pretend to be enthralled by everything he shows me. The tour of the ground floor ends at the base of a flight of stairs.
“Most of our members live in the house,” he explains. “Do you want to see the rooms? They will likely be pretty empty since everyone is in class now.”
I would rather eat glass, but I know that I have to go with him. I can’t do this if I don’t. “That would be great, thanks.”
I follow Lennox up the stairs to the second floor with a feeling of doom in the pit of my stomach. The last time I climbed these same stairs, it was about twenty-five years ago. I didn’t know what was about to happen and that my whole life was about to change.
“So like I said,” he continues at the top of the stairs, completely oblivious, “most of our members live in the house. We have bunk beds, so it’s a little tight, but it’s worth it to be able to live with your brothers. Would you like to see one of the rooms?”
“Yes,” I squeak out.
He takes me down the hallway, and the first room on the left is already cracked open. He pushes the door the rest of the way open to reveal a small room with a bunk bed and two desks. In a way, it looks like a standard college dorm room. Nothing special.
But it’s nearly identical to the room I was in that night. So much so that my head starts to spin.
Please stop!
Don’t worry. This will be over in a minute.
My heart starts to race. I feel suddenly lightheaded—there’s a very distinct possibility I might faint. Lennox is droning on about the course load at MIT and how he still has PTSD from his operating systems class last semester. “I can’t even go in that building anymore,” he jokes.
I take deep breaths, trying to get myself under control. This is just a college frat house room. Nothing more. It can’t hurt me anymore.
You can do this, Debbie. You’re stronger than you were when you were nineteen.
“Hey.” Lennox stops his monologue when the pad of paper falls from my fingers, splaying out on the floor. “Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”
“Fine.” I gulp in another breath as I bend down to pick up the pad of my chicken scratch. “I skipped lunch. Stupid me.”
He smiles sympathetically. “We can wrap things up if you want. Really, the only thing left to see is the basement. We can skip that though, if you’d like.”
“No.” I square my shoulders. The lightheaded feeling has passed, and my sense of resolve has returned. I have come this far, and I’m not about to turn back. “Let’s finish the tour.”
I take one more look around the room. It looks like any other college frat house room, but one thing catches my attention: the lighter on one of the two desks. I hadn’t necessarily expected to see one, but now that I have, I know that this will be the room that I must return to.
Lennox leads me back out of the room, but before I leave, I casually drop my purse on the desk closest to the door. He doesn’t see me do it, but when the tour ends, I will explain to him that I accidentally left it behind, and he’ll let me come back up here to retrieve it.
That’s when I will burn down Zeta Pi.
Today, I will end this.