The room goes silent, and when I turn around from the dresser with my phone, they’re both sitting on Lani’s bed, staring at me, waiting for an answer.
I sigh. “Fine. Sure. Whatever. I’ll go meet the girls who are about to steal my best friend away from me.”
“Love you,” Simone singsongs. “You’re the best.”
“I know,” I say flatly.
Simone winks at me. “That’s what I like to hear.”
I roll my eyes playfully at her as she stands up and takes my hand, dragging us all out of the room. I quickly swipe my bag sitting on the floor as I’m pulled out of the door against my will.
* * *
On our walk from our dorms to Greek row, we’re laughing and joking with Simone about all the crazy things we pretend we’ve heard are a part of the hazing they do here at A&M.
I nudge Lani and give her a look, telling her to go along with whatever I’m about to say.
“You know, someone was telling me how crazy the hazing gets here. Are you sure you’re ready to go along with anything they make you do, Simone?”
I see Lani swipe her tongue across the inside of her bottom lip, trying not to smirk. I need her to play it cool if I’m going to get Simone to actually believe me here.
Simone waves me off. “Nah, they said they don’t do anything crazy. It’s all normally pretty harmless and just for tradition.”
I shrug, trying to come off casual. “I don’t know about that. There was a girl at that kick-off event you dragged us to who said last year they made her do a hazing one night where she had to do blow or blow.”
Lani chokes and tries to cover it up with a cough. I give her a look to play it cool, trying not to laugh myself.
Simone looks over at me, confused. “Blow or blow? What does that even mean?”
I tilt my head at her and press my lips together, giving her a look like she should know what I’m talking about, but she just stares back at me blankly, like she’s genuinely clueless.
“Blow,” I explain with a visual of me pretending to snort an imaginary line of coke. “Or…blow,” I say, taking both of my hands and making the universal twisting motion of giving a blowjob.
Simone slaps my arms down to stop me from continuing my fun game of charades and looks around to see if anyone saw. “Lyd!”
“Oh, calm down, prude,” I joke with her.
“You know,” Lani butts in. “I swear I heard another girl talking about hazing, too, at the same event now that I think about it.”
Simone gives Lani a ‘bullshit’ look, but she continues anyway.
“Seriously. I swear I heard her say something about how they make the girls at Tri Delta strip down to their underwear and force them to sit on top of a washing machine, then they turn it on the max cycle and any fat that moves, they circle with a red sharpie…and they do it on their pool party night so they’re forced to walk around all night like that.”
Simone literally stops walking, and a group of guys almost runs into us from behind. As they carefully walk around us, one of them turns back and locks eyes with me for longer than what seems like a normal glance, putting us both in some kind of trance before turning back around and walking away with his friends. This weird feeling washes over me, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. I have no idea who that was or what that feeling was…but it was weirdly comforting?Strange.
“You two play too much,” Simone says, scolding us, but I see the fear in her expression. I want to take it back and laugh all at the same time. My poor, sweet, innocent Simone.
Lani suddenly has the best poker face when she adds, “That’s actually a real thing… I mean, have you never heard of the elephant walk they make fraternity pledges do?”
And now it’smewho can’t control herself, and ends up doubling over in laughter.
Simone looks concerned, scared, and a little curious. “What the hell is the elephant walk?”
My hands are on my knees,and I’m wiping literal tears from my eyes when I look up at Lani, who’s holding back her own laugh.
“Go on, Lani,” I say, encouragingly. “Tell her what the elephant walk is.”
She doesn’t even hesitate. “It’s when they make the guys all line up with their boxers at their ankles, and then they each have to stick a finger in the next person’s… you know…butt hole,” she whispers, looking around. “And then they have to hold each other’s di—”
