Hazed (Palm South University)

I don’t know why she showed up here today, why she was at the house without even texting to see if I’d be around. Something tells me she showed up on a whim, that part of her was hoping she wouldn’t find me at all.

But she did.

Along with my entire family.

“So, how are we breaking up these teams?” Clayton asks when we make it to the field. It’s already bustling with Greeks and parents alike. “Because I think I want dibs on Erin.”

He winks up at her, which makes her laugh and arch a brow at me.

“Hey, I’m not responsible,” I claim, throwing my hands up.

“I like that idea,” Mom says. “You and Erin, Carleton and Janae…” She pauses, then, her eyes a bit apprehensive when she smiles at me. “And me and you, Bear?”

I smile back. “Let’s do it.”

Mom’s eyes water up a bit, but she smiles to clear the emotion, and once we drop my nephews off at the kids’ area, we make our way to the first event.

It’s a beautiful day in South Florida, warm but breezy with plenty of cloud cover. There’s supposed to be a storm moving in later this evening, but right now, it’s paradise.

We start with the long jump, which Carleton wins in a landslide, thanks to his beanstalk legs. We used to tease him and call him Daddy Long Legs when we were kids. He’s always been a lanky sonofabitch, but this time, it came in handy for him.

Next is the tug of war, which Mom and I win, mostly thanks to the fact that I haven’t missed a day at the gym since I was fourteen. Then there’s the one-hundred-yard dash, which stuns us all when Janae pulls out some speed we had no idea she contained.

“First place relay team in high school, suckers,” she teases after the victory, and she and Carleton high-five each other before kissing in a way that makes Clayton murmur, “Gross.”

There’s disc golf and relay races, an egg and spoon course, and a ping-pong ball race where you have to use a water gun to get the ball to move. There’s a balloon pop and three-legged race, and of course, a Double Dutch jump rope competition which Mom dominates because she grew up on that game.

Course after course, race after race, we frolic around the field as a family.

And the longer we play, the more emotional I get.

I swear, I’m getting soft in my old age. Maybe it’s that graduation is sneaking up on me, and all those same feelings that were haunting me over Spring Break are only getting stronger now. But I’m laughing harder than I have in years, and yet I also feel like I’m on the verge of tears.

This is the first time I think we’ve ever been like this as a family.

Sure, when we were younger, Mom would take us to the park on her day off sometimes, or let us play basketball at the courts while she watched. But we never took family vacations. Timing never seemed to work out, especially once we got older, once Carleton settled down and I went off to college. That limited time we’d managed to save for each other became less and less.

I think the last time we were even all together at the same time was the Christmas after Camron was born.

Four years ago.

It’s something I never thought I’d see — Mom clean and healthy, Carleton being a good father and husband, my nephews carefree and living it up. It makes it all better to see how positively it’s impacting Clayton, how he’s able to recoup his relationship with our mother and have her around while he chases his football dreams and finishes high school.

What a stark contrast to where we all were just a few years ago, when Skyler was writing checks for my drugged-out mom and older brother, and my little brother had to move in with his best friend’s family.

To top it all off, Erin is here.

And fuck if that doesn’t wreck me, too.

Because I see her joking with my brothers, playing with my nephews, and talking with my mother, and I have this ridiculous pinch in my gut that she belongs here.

That we belong here.

I can also see that she’s not okay.

I don’t know what’s going on, but the fact that she showed up to the O Chi house unannounced tells me something isn’t right. Pair that with the fact that I know the difference between her real smiles and the ones she has to fake, and it’s plain as day.

I make a mental note to ask later.

For now, I’ve got to beat her ass in this wheelbarrow race to break the tie between our team and hers.

“Alright, teams,” Skyler says, blowing her whistle once to get our attention before she lets it dangle around her neck. As the president of KKB, she’s one of the hosts of the field day, and she’s got the suntan to prove it. “One of you assumes the position of the wheelbarrow, putting your hands on the ground and letting your other partner hold your legs around their waist. Then, you have to work together to get down around the cones and back first. If the wheelbarrow’s feet touch the ground at any point, you have to start over.”