All Boys Aren't Blue

Content Warning: Part 4, Chapter 14 references anti-gay slurs.

Chapter 14 is about Johnson discovering fraternities and finding a home in one. Johnson is “smoked out” by their first semester, struggling academically and self-isolating as they did in New Jersey. Resolving to do better in the second semester, they kick a marijuana addiction and focus on their grades and work. After watching a sorority-joining spectacle on campus, Johnson befriends a man named Lawrence, who is part of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Johnson expresses their interest in joining to Lawrence, but after a long stretch of silence assumes they won’t get to join.

One night, Johnson receives a mysterious phone call from a man named Charles, claiming to be Johnson’s “line brother”: a fellow fraternity candidate put into a group with Johnson and seven others. Johnson meets Charles and their seven other line brothers to begin studying for admission to the fraternity. At the outset, Johnson feels joining this fraternity is necessary to gain a conventional masculinity that they have always lacked. Johnson believes this will finally allow them to love themself as a man and to feel pride in who they are instead of shame.

While Johnson is studying for entry into the fraternity, an older fraternity brother suspects them of being gay and calls them the f-word.