The Unbreakable Lily Rain

Chapter Seven

It was with sweat trailing down my back and tears threatening to spill from my eyes that I returned to my room. Beside me, Jo crawled on her hands and knees, no longer able to stand.

Never in my life had I experienced that much abuse. I shivered at the thought of the seniors rushing towards us, as we stood in formation and my legs screamed at me to run. Cassius had taken to me immediately. There was at least one senior attached to every plebe. Shouting commands only inches from our faces. Insults flew as they tried to break us down.

                        

The entire time, it took all I had to remember my father’s words.

“Don’t let them see you cry.”

The image of Cassius only inches away from me, demanding that I look him in the eyes as I struggled with what seemed like the hundredth set of push-ups remained vivid in my memories.

“Are you worthless, Kellen?”

 

“I am worthless sir!”

 

“Can women do anything as well as a man can, Kellen?”

 

“No we can’t sir!”

 

When we first get into formation, I wanted to resist. The upperclassmen from the balcony above the quad screamed down at us. The biting comments left me feeling more angry than hurt. They begged the seniors to hurt us. They wanted to see the pain in our faces as we were forced to go through with our brutal workout.

I managed to ignore the comments for a while. The things the upperclassmen were saying to us as a group were bearable, mostly, anyway.

What I couldn’t stand were the biting remarks directed solely at Jo and me. The catcalls, the whistles, and the cheers were too much for me to handle.

So, I snapped. Before I had time to stop myself I found that I was flipping off every single senior watching us from the balcony.  

 

It probably wasn’t my best idea.

Cassius was livid. I broke ranks, and it became quickly obvious that subordination wasn’t going to be tolerated.

He made the entire class do another four sets of push-ups.

“Thanks to Kellen.” he said.

Knowing that I had only made the situation infinitely worse for myself, I slumped onto my bed, still wheezing as my heart hammered in my chest. I wanted to forget everything that had happened that night. I wanted to take back the tiny bit of rebellion I had in me when we first started.

By disrespecting the upperclassmen, I knew I had just made myself their number-one target for the next sweat party.

It took Jo and me an hour to recover to the point where we could move again. For a while, neither of us said anything. We just sat on our beds, looking at each other from across the room, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.