Don’t be such a wimp. Just drink the stupid thing. It’s not going to kill you, and obviously the point of the evening is to get drunk.

“DRINK!” Eric screamed from behind us, and the room erupted from silence into a cacophony of shouting voices. My heart started pounding. I took a deep breath. Just do it, Jordy. Several people were shouting at me, and I could sense how close they were standing to me. I raised the bottle up to my lips and started drinking. The beer foamed and sloshed as I tried to swallow it down, but it was hard. With the bottle tilted up, my mouth would fill with beer and I couldn’t swallow it fast enough to keep up with it. Beer poured down the sides of my face, running down my neck and soaking my shirt. I tried to breathe through my nose as I kept drinking, but most of it was winding up on me rather than in me. The noise didn’t let up. The brothers screaming at me kept it up. I heard some cheers from around me as some of my pledge brothers managed to finish their beers. I kept trying to down the damned stuff, and gagged. More beer foamed and spilled down the side of my face. In my ear a voice whispered, “Don’t worry about it, Jordy, just turn it upside down on top of your head. Let it spill on you. No one cares.”

With a sigh of relief I took the bottle away from my mouth and swallowed another mouthful. My eyes were watering and my nostrils were burning. I gulped in air as I turned the bottle upside down on top of my head. More beer soaked my hair and cascaded down the back of my neck, and I leaned forward against the wall, still trying to get enough air. I felt dizzy, and the beer was churning inside my stomach. A hand patted me on the back. “Nice job, Jordy,” someone said. I couldn’t place the voice.

Eric blew a whistle and my head was spinning. I felt like I was going to throw up. I fought the urge and kept gulping air.

“Let’s have a round of applause for our pledges!” Eric yelled, and the brothers cheered. “Nice job, pledges,” Eric went on as the cheer died down. “This is an important night, pledges. You are about to find out who your big brother is. Your big brother is your mentor, your best friend in the brotherhood. He is there to help you, to guide you, to teach you in the ways of the brotherhood. He had a big brother, who had a big brother, who had a big brother, a family that traces all the way back to the original founders of Beta Kappa, links in a chain of brotherhood that join us all together.”

I bit my lower lip and dared to hope.

At our last pledge meeting we had to write down the names of three brothers we wanted for our big brothers. I didn’t hesitate for a moment before scribbling Chad York down as my first choice.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was always polite to me—not overly friendly but not cold, either—and I’d enjoyed my interview with him. He was a sophomore from Woodbridge up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near Yosemite National Park. He was majoring in advertising and art history, and he hoped to work for a museum when he graduated—preferably one in San Francisco. He had several younger brothers and sisters, had played basketball and run track in high school, and had gone through Rush with several guys he’d gone to high school with. “They all wound up at Sigma Alpha Epsilon,” he said with a slight smile, “but SAE was a bunch of homophobic assholes, so I wound up here at Beta Kappa. Best decision I ever made in my life.”

I wanted him. And maybe it was the wrong reason to choose a big brother, but I hoped it would bring us together.

The last two choices didn’t matter to me, so I wrote in Roger Devlin as my second choice and Eric Matthews as my third.

Silence descended as I started breathing normally again. I still felt nauseated, but I was excited. This was it. My heart was pounding in my ears.

“Remove your blindfolds, pledges,” Eric ordered.

I reached up and pulled the soaked rag off my head, blinking in the light.

“Turn around and face your big brother.”

I bit my lower lip to keep a big, stupid grin off my face, and turned around.

Roger stood there, a huge delighted grin on his face. “Hey,” he said, taking the empty bottle from me.

Disappointment surged through me. Chad didn’t want me. I wanted to run out of the room and hide somewhere. You insensitive asshole, it’s not Roger’s fault and he’s obviously really happy—don’t spoil this for him. I forced a smile on my face. “Cool,” I managed to say as my stomach lurched and tried rejecting the beer I’d swallowed. “Thanks for taking me, Roger.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Roger pulled me into a big hug. Over his shoulder, I could see Chad hugging Jacob, a huge smile on his face. I forced myself to look away.

Of course he picked the best-looking pledge as his little brother, a horrible voice whispered in my head. Did you really think you had a chance? He doesn’t even know you exist. You’re not good enough for him. He’d never want someone like you in a million years—he doesn’t even want you as a little brother.

I squeezed Roger back, blinking my eyes so I wouldn’t cry. I took a few deep breaths.

“Are you okay? You look a little green,” Roger said, stepping back a bit.

“I think I’m—going—to be sick.” I pushed my way past Roger and ran out of the room and down the hallway, all the while trying to keep the frothy, foamy beer down as it fought its way up into my throat. As I ran I was vaguely aware that brothers were following me, chanting something that sounded like Puke! Puke! Puke!

I pushed through the saloon doors of the first-floor bathroom and made it into one of the stalls as a stream of foamy beer erupted out of my mouth and my nose. It splashed against the back wall of the stall, and I bent over the toilet as it kept coming up. It didn’t seem possible. I hadn’t swallowed that much, had I? I thought I’d spilled most of it, but somehow more just kept coming up, and every time I thought I was finished my stomach lurched and even more foamy liquid came streaming up. As I heaved, tears running down my face, I could hear the brothers still chanting Puke! Puke! Puke! behind me.

Finally, I was finished. I stood there, my hands on my knees, catching my breath as the brothers cheered behind me. I wiped my face and turned to face the brothers. They were grinning at me.

“One pledge down, nine more to go!” someone shouted, and the brothers all ran out of the bathroom—except for Roger.

He smiled ruefully at me. “Don’t be embarrassed, Jordy.” He shrugged. “You don’t drink, so you shouldn’t have had to try to chug a quart of beer. But it’s tradition.” He held up his hands in a “what can you do” gesture that didn’t make me feel any better. “But you don’t have to drink any more, if that helps. The whole point of the night is to make all the pledges puke—and since you already have . . .” His voice trailed off.

“I’m a shitty pledge,” I said. My head was still spinning, and I felt woozy. If this was what being drunk felt like, I was never going to drink again. I tried walking out of the stall but slipped and staggered and grabbed on to Roger to stop from falling.

“Come to my room and I’ll give you some sweats to wear, get you out of those wet clothes.” Roger smiled at me. “I’m so glad you picked me as your big brother. I couldn’t believe it when Eric told me. I thought for sure—” He stopped talking and shook his head. “Never mind, come on.”

I followed him out of the bathroom, holding on to the wall for support as we headed down the hallway to his room. Everything seemed tilted, and the floor felt like it was moving.

I didn’t choose you. I chose Chad. But he didn’t want me.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I followed Roger. He unlocked his door and held it open for me. I wiped the tears away and smiled bravely at him. “I still don’t feel so good.”