Page 6 of Love Legacy

Naomi

T here’s a soft knock at my door, then a second, more forceful one right after. I roll over in bed toward the door, fully awakened. “Come in!”

Maeve pokes her head in, holding up a pale pink-colored envelope. “I believe this is for you.” She holds it out to me, stepping into the room.

I throw the blankets off, sitting up in bed and taking the letter from her. “What’s this?” I ask, turning the envelope over in my hands. It’s the same shade of pink as the Kappa Theta Alpha colors, and my name is printed on the front in gold calligraphy. Fancy.

“Just open it,” Maeve says, bouncing on her toes excitedly.

I raise an eyebrow, watching her drink her coffee with already too much energy for the day.

I open the envelope, taking the card out.

It’s equally as ornate as the envelope. The card is cream-colored with the Kappa Theta Alpha crest on the front and the sorority name in the same gold calligraphy underneath.

I open the card, skimming it quickly before reading it out loud for Maeve’s satisfaction.

“Naomi,we’ve had an amazing time this week getting to know you and the rest of the interests.

You embody the values that we hold close: Sisterhood, Leadership, Inclusivity and Charity.

If you are interested, the members of Kappa Theta Alpha would love to extend an invitation for you to join our sisterhood. ”

Maeve tries to hide her mega-watt grin behind her hand. “So… Are you going to join us?”

I smile, grabbing one of my pillows and chucking it at her legs, avoiding her coffee mug. “You’re so annoying. Yes, I would love to join your sorority.”

“Yay! Okay, you have approximately…forty-two minutes to get yourself ready. Wear some kind of light-colored bottoms, like a lighter wash denim or white pants. Top doesn’t matter though, we’ll give you a T-shirt when you get to the house.

Alex will drop you off. I have to be there in fifteen,” she says, checking her watch.

I wasn’t even paying attention to the fact that Maeve was already fully dressed.

She had on a pair of distressed, light-washed, straight-leg jeans, a cropped, light yellow T-shirt with the Kappa letters across the chest in gold, and a pair of her white running sneakers.

“You look cute. I’ll see you in a little while. ”

Maeve smiles, leaving my room in a hurry.

I get up, heading toward my closet and pulling out a pair of white, high-waisted skinny jeans and a plain grey T-shirt.

I get dressed, putting on a pair of tan gladiator sandals along with my outfit.

I take my bonnet off, letting my hair down.

There were no rush events yesterday, so I managed to squeeze in an appointment at a braiding salon in Manhattan I found on social media.

It was pricey, but they did a fantastic job. I got Senegalese twists done, and they curled the ends and added gold clips and other charms to the braids. It was much different than the basic box braids I’m used to getting in Georgia, but I’m extremely pleased with how they came out.

I pull the front sections of twists back, using a gold claw clip to hold them in place.

I keep my makeup simple, putting on some mascara, a peachy lip and cheek tint, and then a pinky-nude gloss.

I put on my gold cross necklace and a few simple gold bracelets before grabbing my purse and heading into the living room.

Alex was waiting for me in the living room, dressed similarly to Maeve. She was wearing the same yellow Kappa T-shirt, tied up and knotted at the waist, with a pair of loose, white, split-leg pants and flip-flops. “Ready?”

I nod. “Is this okay to wear today? I know Maeve mentioned some kind of dress code.”

“It’s perfect. And I love your hair! I don’t think I saw you last night when you go back from the city.”

“I think I came back after you left for Matt’s house.

” Matthew is Alex’s current boyfriend. According to Maeve, she is a bit of a serial monogamist, always dating someone new, but Alex really seems to like this guy.

And he is completely opposite her usual type, but maybe that’s for the best. From what I’ve heard, Alex tends to date athletes, but Matthew is a total nerd.

Don’t get me wrong, he is equally as built as some of the student athletes on campus, but he works out for fun.

Matthew is a computer science major and an expert coder.

He actually made a small fortune in high school from a Smart Home app that he created and sold to Philips.

He’s a tech and video game nerd through and through, but he Alex are so evenly matched with their laid-back mentalities and outgoing personalities.

“Ah, yeah, probably. I think I left around dinner time. Matt was doing a twenty-four-hour video game marathon charity stream yesterday, and it ended at seven. I went over there to cook him some food and clean his apartment because I knew he was going to crash hard.”

“Aw, look at you. You’re basically a whole wife already,” I say jokingly.

Alex shoves me gently as we head out of the apartment. “What can I say? I really like him.”

We got to the Kappa Theta Alpha house to see that the driveway was already full of cars and the yard full of women.

Alex parked her car on the street outside the house before getting out.

“Okay, you stay out here with the rest of the pledges, and I’ll see you in a little bit,” she says, leaving me to head into the house.

There were about ten of us hanging out in the front yard. “I think we might be their biggest pledge class in years,” says a woman to my right. She holds her hand out to me. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Penny! Well, Penelope, but no one on this planet other than my grandma calls me that.”

I grip her hand lightly, shaking it. “Naomi. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, you’re Naomi? They’ve been talking about you all week,” she says, gesturing toward the house with her head. “You must have had some kind of an in, because rumor is, you were an automatic yes from Day One. Which says a lot. I mean, I’m a KTA legacy, and even I wasn’t an automatic.”

I tilt my head in confusion. “A KTA legacy…?”

“Oh my gosh, and you don’t even know what a legacy is, how precious.” Penny gives me a cloyingly sweet smile. “When you’re a legacy, it just means that your parent attended the school or joined the organization before you. So my mom was a KTA sister at this very chapter twenty-one years ago.”

I fight the frown forming on my face. This girl is a piece of work. “Ah, I see. I am not a legacy, but Maeve and Aleka are my roommates. They’re the ones that convinced me to rush in the first place.”

You could practically see the color drain from Penny’s face. “You’re roommates with Maeve. Like, the Vice President Maeve?”

“Yep!” I say, popping the P.

Penny scrambles to come up with some excuse or apology, but she’s cut off by the sound of the front door opening.

There stood Raven and Sage, also dressed in their yellow KTA T-shirts.

Raven had cut hers into a tank top paired with some lightweight, tan cargo pants.

Sage somehow turned hers into a tube top that laced up in the back, pairing it with a white tennis skirt.

The outfit showed off all her tattoos, the dark ink contrasting against her pastel outfit.

“Hi, everyone, and welcome to Kappa Theta Alpha. If you’re here, I assume that means that you’ve chosen to accept our invitation to join the sisterhood.

We are delighted to have you. If you could follow us into the house, we’re going to hold a brief ceremony first, and then bid day will be underway,” Sage calls out, leading us into the house.

We head down the hall to a large room set up with a projector, a few rows of chairs and a table up front.

“This is where we hold our weekly chapter meetings,” Raven explains, gesturing for us all to take a seat, “though if we don’t need the projector, sometimes we’ll just gather around in the living room or kitchen. ”

“We do, however, use this room for all our membership rituals. The first of which being your pinning.” Sage takes a wooden box from the table, opening it to reveal ten pins sitting in the velvet lining.

The pins were a gold cloud, maybe an inch long, with the Kappa Theta Alpha letters and four small gold stars, all on a pink background. She takes a moment to explain the symbolism of the pin, from the non-traditional shape to the four stars, which represent the core values of the sorority.

Sage hands out the pins with Raven’s help, carefully instructing us not to put them on yet. She then begins the pinning ceremony, having us recite the vows of membership back to her as she reads them, line by line, in a call and response. Once done, she tells us to put the pins on.

“Congratulations. You are all now associate members or pledges of Kappa Theta Alpha. There’s a membership intake process to go through before you are initiated as full members of KTA, but from now on, we consider you one of us.

Raven will reach out in the coming week with all the information on the membership intake process. ”

“But now, you guys can head down the hallway and go to the backyard. There’s plenty of sisters out there ready to congratulate you!”

We all file into the backyard to see a big group of Kappa Theta Alpha sisters gathered together under a big banner that says Welcome Beta Nu class!

There were many more members present today than there were during Rush, maybe another ten or fifteen sisters?

They all had matching yellow letter shirts, and some of the sisters were holding signs with names written on them and gift bags.

I scan the group to see Maeve and Alex waving at me, holding the sign with my name on it. I walk over to them and they engulf me in a massive group hug. “Welcome to the fam, Naomi!”

I hug them back. “Thanks, y’all!”

Maeve hands me the pink gift bag in her hands. “Open it!”

I take the pink gift bag from her, pulling out the tissue paper on top.

In the bag is a light pink T-shirt similar to the one they are wearing.

It has white Greek letters across the chest, with Beta Nu underneath.

Also in the bag is a twelve-ounce metal tumbler sublimated with the sorority’s letters in gold and a plush dove.

“A dove?” I ask curiously, lifting it from the bag.

“It’s our animal. You learn more about the symbolism during your membership intake process,” Alex says with a wave of her hand. “Now give me that and go change into your shirt. You can use one of the bathrooms in the house if you don’t want to do it out here.”

I give her an appreciative smile, heading into the house. On my way to the bathroom, I bump into a familiar tall blonde. “Oh, sorry, Sage.”

She catches me by the waist, righting me before I stumble backward. “Naomi, hi. Congratulations again on joining Kappa Theta Alpha.”

“Thank you for the invitation. Rumor has it that I was an automatic acceptance.”

“I don’t know about automatic, but you were definitely a favorite. Aleka and Maeve were pulling hard for you.”

“They’ve been pretty good to me so far. I know they wanted me to have the quintessential college experience, and what better way to do that than join a sorority?”

“You’ve got a point there,” Sage says, her hands still lightly gripping my sides.

“SAGE! Did you get lost?” a voice calls out from the backyard.

She steps back from me, dropping her hands at her side. “Right, I was on ice duty. Let me get that before they send a search party after me.” Sage starts walking back toward the kitchen before turning.

“I’m glad you decided to join Kappa. I look forward to seeing you around,” she says with a wink before heading off.

I make my way to the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

I change out of my plain T-shirt and into the Kappa shirt, tucking the front into my jeans.

I come out of the bathroom and almost bump into someone else.

I look up from the shirt in my hands to see a woman a few years older standing before me.

“Sorry, I guess I should be more careful about watching where I’m going. You’re the second person I’ve bumped into today.”

She smiles, waving my apology off. “Don’t worry about it. I was completely absorbed in my phone,” she says, tucking the device into her back pocket. “My name’s Theia. Nice to meet you.”

I smile. “Naomi. Are you an alumni?”

Theia shakes her head, pauses, and then shrugs. “Kind of? I’m a PhD student here at Pinebrook. So I graduated and officially became an alumni three years ago, but I still hang around at the house and attend sorority events when I can.”

“That’s awesome! You must be really close with the current sisters then.”

She laughs. “Yeah, though not entirely by choice. My younger sister is part of Kappa Theta Alpha too.”

“Oh, who’s your sister?”

“Sage.”

My jaw drops. “Wait, you guys are sisters?” I ask, trying to process. I never would’ve guessed they were related, let alone sisters.

“I know, we don’t look anything alike. Sage is my adopted sister.”

“Ah, that makes more sense.” Sage was a beach blonde, Malibu Barbie, and Theia might as well be Logan Browning’s doppelganger.

“She spoke a lot about you this week.”

“Really?”

She nods. “Yep. I think Sage has a bit of a girl crush on you. But don’t tell her I told you that,” she says, putting her finger to her lips.

I mime zipping my lips shut and throwing away the key. “Your secret’s safe with me, Theia.” I grin.

She smiles back at me, reaching out and lightly touching my elbow. “Let’s grab a coffee soon, yeah? I’d love to sit down and get to know you.”

“I’d like that,” I say as Theia walks away.

I finally head back out into the backyard, beelining toward Maeve and Alex.

Maeve has her phone out, taking photos. She takes a photo of me in my Kappa T-shirt before handing her phone to someone else and asking them to take a photo of the three of us.

I stand in the middle, Alex and Maeve on either side of me, pushing in tight and pointing to the writing on my shirt.

We take another photo with them sandwiching me in the middle of a big group hug. This is what I longed for: genuine friendship. And I think I finally found it with my roommates, now sorority sisters.