Sweet Water(34)

We’re close enough to the hospitals, and Oakland isn’t exactly the nicest part of Pittsburgh, so the thrumming of cop cars isn’t rare, but they usually blare at night, and there typically aren’t quite so many of them all at one time making horrid noises.

“Oh shit. They’re on campus. Like, parking right outside.”

Hanna slips on some sloppy sweatpants and a GAP hoodie. “Come on, Sarah, get your ass up; someone could be hurt.”

I roll my eyes and put my pillow back over my face. Hanna is full of shit. She doesn’t care if anyone is hurt—she just wants to see what all the drama is about.

I hear her grab her toothbrush caddy to go to the community bathrooms. “You’ll be sorry if you miss this.”

Yeah, well, you said I’d be sorry if I missed the party last night, and today I feel like hell.

Slowly, I sit up in bed and decide whether motion is possible. “Fuck,” I groan. My head feels like it’s going to split in two. I almost wish I’d hurled last night and gotten it out of the way already, because I feel like I still might.

“I can’t change my clothes,” I say. Motion is possible, but there are limits.

“Cool. Get up.” Hanna is persuasive, and I’ve told her multiple times that if the engineering thing falls through, she should try sales.

I stand and place a ball cap on my head, pulling my matted hair through the other side and knotting it in a ponytail so no one can see the grease factor. Then I obediently follow Hanna to the bathrooms and brush my teeth. Hanna splashes water on my face and applies moisturizer and concealer over the dark circles under my eyes. She also smears some lip gloss on my mouth for—color. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“Thanks,” I say, but I feel barely human.

Hanna marches us down the stairs, and we join the crowd of students on the sidewalk walking toward the commotion. There are fire trucks, Pittsburgh police cars, ambulances, and campus security barricading the roads, all lined up on Morewood—right in front of the SAE house. I’m fighting the urge to move faster, every step a struggle, but the panic is so thick, it’s like a fog making it hard to breathe. I manage to inhale and exhale, and it hurts.

The sun is so bright, it makes my stomach flip. I try to turn around so I can vomit in the comfort of my own dorm room, but Hanna grabs my arm. “Ugh.” I’m too weak to resist her.

“What happened?” Hanna asks a fellow student.

He presses pause on his Walkman and slips off his headphones. “I heard one of the SAE pledges died last night. Alcohol poisoning. Hazing exercise. They’re in deep,” he says and then puts his headphones back on and continues walking.

“Oh no,” I say.

“Someone freaking died. At a party we were at last night.” Hanna almost whispers the words, and it’s the quietest I’ve ever seen her. Her face is the color of fresh-driven snow, and if I’m to guess, it’s her first brush with death. It’s unfortunately not mine. “Poor Marty,” I say out loud, because as awful as it feels to lose a student—possibly a friend, if it was one of the guys I knew—I’m worried about Marty, the pledge master.

Hanna’s azure eyes light up like she’s just hit the Powerball of gossip. “There are other frat boys, Sarah. I don’t think you want that one. He sounds like trouble.”

“Hanna, he made people paint a fence and polish lions. I can’t imagine this is all his fault.”

She pulls a face, making me feel like the most naive child on the planet. When we walk closer to the scene, more details are revealed.

Two girls in sorority jackets are hugging each other and crying. They must be upperclassmen. “Poor Tush.”

I gasp for air and tug on the sleeve of the one closest to me. “It was Tush who died?” I ask.

She nods sadly, and I begin to sob. “No.” He was such a cool kid.

“Oh shit,” Hanna says and gives me a hug. “He could rock it on the sax; what a shame. I saw you talking to him last night. Must be trippy that he’s gone today. Sorry, Sarah. Damn, your boy is in trouble.”

“He must be devastated,” I say, clawing at my eyes.

“Wake up, Sarah. It happened at a hazing event. Marty is in charge of the pledges.”



It’s a long week, and I don’t hear from Marty. The school is buzzing with rumors, and none of the brothers has been formally charged. Hanna and I are in the cafeteria, but I’m not hungry. The school newspaper says the pledge master was not on campus the night in question due to illness. “I should bring Marty some soup.”

Hanna takes her ponytail and twists it around her finger while she sucks soda through a straw. “Huh?”

“He was recently sick. I should get a to-go container and bring him some soup.”

“You’re hopeless.” She sighs. “There’re other boys, Sarah. Lots of other boys.”

There were other boys, but all of them would’ve looked at my body that night at the fence, or at least taken a peek. And none of them had been wrongly accused of murder and were in dire need of soup.

Hanna excuses herself to get to class. I’m not even sure if Marty will be at the frat house, where he lives, but I can at least try. So I make the trek to Morewood. It’s getting colder across campus as fall settles in, the wind tunneling through the city streets, cutting through my thin corduroy jacket.