#Rev (GearShark #2)(74)

I no longer rented space inside my skin.

I owned it free and clear.

I wasn’t completely changed, but I wasn’t the same either. Maybe a hybrid? A combination of the past and the present, which would carry me into the future.

Like every new build, the walls and plaster would take time to settle. I was new, and I still felt scared.

I was resolved.

Not resolved to accept life, but resolved to live it.

As I stood here in the locker room, surrounded by men I once considered my brothers, I realized my circle was getting smaller. Not because four men in this group ruined it for everyone, but because I no longer needed to be here.

After today, after I dealt once and for all with Conner and the three other guys who attacked me, I could phase out of the fraternity. I could hand over the reins to Jack and not look back. It was time.

This wasn’t an experience I regretted, because it brought me to where I stood today.

“You’re late!” one of the members hollered and snapped me back to the here and now. I looked up. It was Daniel.

I think of all the four guys who jumped me that night, it was him I was most disappointed by. There are some people you just expect better from, so it royally sucks when they turn out to be a lot skeezier than you thought.

Daniel and I rushed Alpha Omega together. We went through Hell Week together. We even had a couple classes together back in the day when we were still taking basics. He’d been a friend. We partied together, drank together. We were brothers.

And then he held me down and whispered things like, “People like you belong in hell,” while I was beaten.

Conner was a real shit-bag. But somehow, Daniel seemed worse.

I guess because with Conner, you always expected something like that, but not from someone you thought was your friend.

He’d avoided me since that night. I only ever saw him during frat events and meetings. I saw him once on campus, and he physically crossed the street to get away from me.

I liked to sometimes think it was because he was ashamed of what he did. But I knew the truth was because he thought I was disgusting.

So how come I was the disgusting one, but he was the one who acted out of his own disgust?

Daniel was looking a little rough around the edges and a little dazed and confused. His short, dark hair was mussed, and he was gripping a paper in his hand like his life depended on it.

“Where the hell you been?” Jack called, who was standing off to my left.

Daniel glanced up at him. “Sorry. I had a meeting with my career counselor.”

“On game day?” Jack questioned.

“It was sort of an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?” I spoke up.

Daniel looked at me and frowned.

“There’s an issue with my transcript,” he replied. It was like he was so distracted he forgot who he was even talking to.

“What kind of problem?” someone beside him asked.

Daniel sat on the bench. “I’m on academic probation.”

I kept my face smooth and didn’t react. He didn’t deserve my surprise. Just because he wasn’t the type of guy to ever get low scores didn’t mean he didn’t actually get them. He was never the type of person to beat anyone up either…

“They’re just now telling you now?” Jack asked.

“Apparently, there was some kind of error and their system never caught it. Anyway, the school realized it today, and I got called in.” He rubbed a hand over his head. “I’m failing two classes.”

It was late in the semester. If he really was failing, there was no way he was going to have time to make that up.

“What about graduation?” I asked.

“They won’t let me.” He sounded hollow, like he was in shock.

“You’re not going to graduate?” Jack said, incredulous.

“No!” he shouted out, frustrated. Everyone who wasn’t paying attention before sure was now. “My school records show I’m failing two classes. All my assignments are turned in, but half of them all got shitty grades. And my midterms? Apparently, I barely passed those.”

“If you were struggling, why didn’t you ask for help?” Jack pressed. “You know the fraternity has access to free tutoring. Any of the brothers would have helped.”

I nodded because Jack was right. One of the requirements of an Omega charter was he perform well in all classes and maintain a passable average.

“I didn’t know!” he exclaimed. “No one said anything to me until today. I thought I was passing. This has to be some mistake.”

“Maybe their computers are malfunctioning,” someone offered.

“They aren’t. The office checked. And rechecked. Then my career counselor called the professors and had them access their online gradebooks. I’m f*cking failing.”

“What does that mean?” Jack asked. He was looking at me, not Daniel.

“It means he won’t graduate. He’ll have to retake these two classes and graduate next semester,” I answered.

“I’ll have to reenroll for next fall!” he hollered and punched a locker.

“Summer classes?” someone offered.

“Not the ones I need,” he replied, bitter.

“Can you make up the work? The assignments?” I asked, knowing he couldn’t.