Kerry was quick to tell me when I was being silly, annoying, or overdramatic. She also never hesitated to tell me when she felt like being by herself, and wanted space from me. While these words stung at times, I grew to appreciate her honestly. As fast as she was to tell me these things, she was even faster when defending me. She always had my back and never hesitated to defend me fiercely to anyone.
Almost every day of the school year, we chatted over instant messenger (online text messaging), and shared meals together. We went to concerts together, went out to eat, and partied together. In the social group that was my family in college, Kerry was one of my closest sisters. She didn’t care about the fact that our relationship was unconventional, a college girl hanging out with a guy who was two years younger, a different major, and a different race. If people ever said anything to her about it, she never let on. I’m grateful to her that she valued our friendship more than social conventions, and the norms that in our society that too often pull people apart.
Kerry started going out with Josh before I met her. I knew who he was through Kerry and because he was in marching band with us. Josh soon became closer to me when we both pledged PMA and became pledge brothers. As this pledge class of about a dozen guys went through the process of becoming full members we all became closer and became to know each other as fraternity brothers. (follow these link for more about the pledge process part 1, part 2).
The pledge process is about understanding the values of the fraternity. Brotherhood was a value that was often discussed and talked about and one saying that got thrown around was “bros before hos.” This was a crude way to express that the bond between brothers was more important than relationships with girls. There was this idea that girlfriends were short-term (which was often true, but not always) and brotherhood was a bond that lasted a lifetime (which was often not true, but sometimes proved to be real).
There was an awkwardness being friends with women who were going out with my fraternity brothers. Many of the girls my frat brothers went out with were good friends of mine. I heard things about these guys from my female friends, which proved for some awkward encounters. Josh had a sense of this. Whenever, he and Kerry had a fight, I would hear about it from Kerry and Josh knew about this. However, beyond a tacit acknowledgement, we didn’t really talk about his relationship with Kerry . . . until the break-up.
If was different when I saw Josh at the next at a fraternity event. When he saw me, he asked me how Kerry was doing. I responded angrily, “how do you think she is doing?” I chastised him for not having the guts to break up with her in person. This was the start of a series of encounters when I would either ignore him or express anger to him for breaking-up with Kerry.
Just when this feeling was beginning to ebb, I found out the rest of the story.
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