Page 7 of Love Legacy

Naomi

C lass dismissed.

I absolutely hated my Organizational Behavior professor.

Imagine the most bored you’ve ever been, add in the somberness of a funeral and the joy of a colonoscopy, and now you know what it’s like to sit through one of Professor Connors’ classes.

And of course, it’s the one class I don’t share with any of my new friends.

I just keep my head down, do the work, and hope that the class passes quickly.

I gather up my notebook and laptop, packing my things away.

“Hey, Naomi, right?”

I turn, looking up to see a very, very handsome man. “Well, hello there. Yes, that’s my name. Who are you?”

The man holds his hand out to me. “The name’s Elijah.

Nice to meet you.” I take a moment to check him out, sizing him up.

He’s good looking, conventionally attractive.

He has wavy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a smattering of light freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

Elijah is extremely tall, probably 6’4”, and built.

He’s wearing a polo and jeans, but his clothes stretch across his body, muscles bulging underneath.

He honestly looks like he stepped off the page of a Ralph Lauren ad.

“Nice to meet you, Elijah,” I say, shaking his hand. “Can I help you with something?”

He smiles, shaking his head. “There’s that southern hospitality. You have a really strong accent. It’s cute.”

I blush, shifting my bag on my shoulder. “Thank you, but why’d you approach me today? We haven’t talked all semester.”

“Well, you caught my eye a while ago. I’ve just been waiting for the right time to approach you.”

“Oh, really?”

“Of course. You’re beautiful, extremely smart, and I want to get to know you better. Maybe buy you coffee?” Elijah asks, leaning against the lecture hall table behind us.

I think it over for a moment before nodding. “I’d like that.”

“Are you free right now? I’ve got about an hour or so before my next class.”

“I was going to study at the Kappa house, but I can always study later. Let’s do it.”

He grins, standing up straight. We walk to the door of the lecture hall, Elijah holding the door open for me. “Well, thank you.”

We take the ten-minute walk from the business program building to the coffee shop at the center of campus to make small talk about our classes.

Turns out, Elijah is a double major in marketing and business analytics.

He is majoring in business to prepare to take over his father’s company.

The position is his without the degree, but he wants to make sure he won’t run the company into the ground.

We have a lot of similarities in that sense.

We reach the busy coffee shop, squeezing into the small space. Elijah gets in the line to save our spot while I walk up to the counter, trying to get a better look at the menu.

I scan the list of unique drink names, trying to find something tea-based that looks interesting, when I spot a familiar name—Earth Matcha. That is Sage’s favorite. She swears it’s one of their best specialty drinks. And it’s coffee-free.

I walk back to Elijah, pleased to see that the line has advanced a bit. Once we reach the register, we order an Earth Matcha for me and a boring iced coffee with a splash of cream for him.

We grab our drinks, heading outside to sit on a bench across the street at the Student Center.

“So you moved from Alabama, right?”

I shake my head. “Georgia.”

“Georgia! I knew it was one of those deep south states. Why’d you move up to New York? That’s a big change.”

“It is. I was kicked out of my old school. I needed one willing to offer me a full scholarship as a transfer student, and Pinebrook University was the only school that would.”

“Whoa, kicked out? What did you do? No, don’t tell me. I bet I can figure it out.” He thinks for a few minutes, observing me. I smirk, knowing there’s no way he’ll guess correctly.

“I got it. You’re secretly a pyro. You ‘accidentally’ set fire to the science building. Bunsen burner accident.”

I laugh. “What about me screams pyromaniac? Or makes you think that I’ve ever used a Bunsen burner? I’m a business major.”

Elijah laughs with me. “Well, we all have to take an intro science course for core foundations credits. Who knows, maybe yours was a chemistry class?”

“Nope. I took a botany course. I like flowers.” I say, being careful not to reveal too much.

“So, no to the firebug charge?”

I shake my head. “Definitely not, Big Guy,” I say, bumping him with my shoulder.

“Well then, tell me, Sunny, what did you do to get kicked out of school?”

I look around dramatically, feigning like I’m about to share a big secret. Then I lean in to whisper in Elijah’s ear. “I was caught studying in my ex-boyfriend’s dorm room. With the door open.”

Elijah’s eyes go wide, and then he freezes, his brow furrowed in confusion. I can almost hear his brain short-circuiting as he tries to process what I just told him. “What?” is all he manages to get out.

I laugh as he tries and fails to make sense of it all. “I was kicked out of High Valley University. We were not allowed anywhere but the common rooms of opposite-sex dorms. I wasn’t allowed to be in his room. And they gave me a choice: apologize and go through counseling, or leave.”

“And you told them to fuck off and came here?”

“Something like that, yeah,” I say softly.

“And your boyfriend? What did he do?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” I say, emphasizing ex .

“He decided to go through with the punishment. Tried to tell me that I should just go along with it as well. Since that was the ‘godly woman’ thing to do. To stand by my man and submit to his guidance.” I roll my eyes, annoyed by the memory.

“Brutal. So I guess that means you’re back on the market?”

“I don’t know if I was ever really off. Josiah and I were essentially an arranged marriage. Our parents’ plan was for us to get married when we graduated. They were grooming us to take over the church’s operations.”

“Well, now, what do you want to do?”

“I’m not sure. I’m majoring in Global Management. I don’t think I want to work with a mission organization, but I do love the idea of continuing some kind of non-profit work.”

“A noble calling.”

I shrug. “Charity is one of the seven virtues. It’s how I was raised.”

Elijah smiles. “I can respect that. You’ve gotta stay true to your values.”

He checks his watch, standing up. “Shoot, I have to get going for my next class. I’d love to see you again though.”

“Likewise. Here, give me your number,” I say, pulling up my contacts app and handing my phone over to Elijah. He does the same, passing his phone to me. I enter my phone number, putting my name as Sunny before handing it back to him.

Elijah smirks, likely reading the contact entry. “See you later, Naomi,” he says, heading back toward the academic buildings.

I check my phone as I head toward sorority row, laughing when I see Elijah’s number is saved under Big Guy . Clearly, he had the same idea as me.

After a short walk, I reach the Kappa Theta Alpha house. I head inside, going into the kitchen to rummage for a snack. I find some apple cinnamon muffins in a container on the counter. Not seeing a note indicating that they’re for someone specific, I grab one.

I sit at the kitchen table, opting to spread out in here instead of going to the study room. The KTA house has a large room called the Quiet Room, which we use to study.

It’s a sound-proofed room on the main floor of the house, with a large table in the center, a monitor for presentations, and desktops around the perimeter of the room.

It’s a great place to study if you need complete silence, but I hate the isolation.

So I usually just sit in the kitchen, throw on my noise-canceling headphones, and hope for the best.

I was sitting, working on today’s assignment from my Organizational Behavior class, when I started hearing shouting, even cutting through the music playing on my headphones.

I pause my music, take my headphones off, and close my laptop, curious about the commotion in the other room.

“Aaron, I told you I’m getting my PhD. I was making great progress with my advisor on one of her papers, and I want to continue working with her.”

“Theia, you don’t have to do your PhD. Come back to Jersey with me. I’m making great money. You don’t have to work. You can just stay at home.”

“I don’t want to stay at home! What part of that are you not getting? This is what I want to do.”

“Don’t you dare raise your voice to me! Maybe you need to come home after all since you seem to have forgotten your place.”

“My place? Aaron, a relationship is supposed to be a partnership, not a dictatorship. I’m not going to just bend to your will and follow orders from you. I’m a grown woman. I can make my own life choices.”

“Do you have any idea how this makes me look? Being back at home while my girlfriend is off frolicking somewhere else, doing who knows what. For all I know, you could be hooking up with someone here. Maybe that’s why you don’t want to leave.”

She gasps. “How dare you accuse me of cheating? That’s your MO, Aaron, not mine. Or have you already forgotten about Jessica?” She turns to walk away, but the guy, Aaron, grabs her forearm tight, stopping her in her tracks and pulling Theia close to him.

“Ow! Let go, Aaron, you’re hurting me,” she says, but that just seems to encourage him as he squeezes tighter.

“How many fucking times do I have to say I’m sorry before you drop it?” he hisses, his face close to hers.

“Then don’t accuse me of cheating on you! If I wanted to get back at you for what you did, I would’ve done it last year when I found out.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing now in your own little way? Punishing me by staying away from home for this stupid little degree?”

Theia tries to pull herself free from Aaron, but his grip on her arm is relentless. “It has nothing to do with you. I’m doing this for me, regardless of how you feel about it.”

He raises a hand as if he’s going to strike her and that’s when I step in. “Hey, Theia, I need a favor from—oh, sorry.” I stop mid-sentence, feigning like I didn’t realize I was interrupting. Aaron’s grip loosens and Theia takes the opportunity to free herself from his hold.

“That’s alright, he was just leaving. Right, Aaron?” She shoots daggers at him, and he takes the hint, his eyes narrowing.

“Sure. We’re not done talking about this though,” he says, grabbing his keys and heading out the front door of the sorority house, slamming it behind him.

Theia lets out a large sigh of relief, cradling her arm to her chest and rubbing her forearm to soothe the ache. There are already red marks from Aaron’s grip.

“Naomi, right? What did you need?” she asks, turning toward me.

“Are you okay, Theia? Are you…safe?” I ask hesitantly. We didn’t know each other well at all, but I’d seen abusive men before, and Aaron was a field of red flags. Plus, we were sorority sisters now, and I felt like I should check in.

She sighs again, this time completely deflating as she sits down on the couch. I tentatively take a seat next to her and look over to see her blinking back tears.

“Yes… No… I think so? I don’t think he was actually going to hit me. Aaron’s usually not like this, I promise. Things have just been tough for us since I decided to stay here,” she says softly, barely above a whisper.

“Aaron went to Pinebrook too?”

She nods. “Yep. We met at a sorority fraternity mixer when we were juniors. It was a ‘famous duos’ theme, and every KTA member was assigned a fraternity brother as their partner and one-half of the duo to dress up as. Except we weren’t told who our partners were.

So we just showed up and had to find out who we matched with.

It was kind of like a blind date on steroids.

But Aaron was the SpongeBob to my Patrick.

Went on a few dates after and we’ve been together ever since. ”

“Weren’t you initiated seven years ago? He just graduated?”

“I joined KTA as a freshman. Aaron and I graduated with our bachelors three years ago. I took a year off to travel and do some research in South America with one of my undergrad professors who was on sabbatical. Aaron went straight into law school. He just finished his JD in May. I finished my Masters in Biology.”

“So when he graduated and got a job, he thought you were just going to come home?”

Theia nods. “Apparently so. I thought he would get over it once he started his law firm job in New York City, but he freaked out when he realized I came back. Today was the first time he was able to drive up to campus and see me in person. I’ve been dodging his calls this past week,” she says sheepishly.

“Theia, you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to him. That’s not a relationship…” I say softly, looking at the marks darkening on her arm. “Let me get you some ice for that.”

I get up from the couch, heading into the kitchen. Theia follows me quietly, taking a seat at the island in the kitchen. I open the freezer drawer, reaching in to grab a medium-sized ice pack for her. I wrap it in a dish towel before handing it over.

“Thanks,” she says, giving me a small smile and wrapping the ice pack around her arm.

“Theia, does Sage…know? About what Aaron’s been doing?”

She shakes her head adamantly. “No, absolutely not. And she can’t know,” she says pointedly.

“Theia, you need to tell someone. Other than me, I mean.”

“I can’t tell Sage. You can’t tell Sage.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’ll tell our parents! And I can’t have them worrying about me. Not about this… They love Aaron,” she murmurs.

“You think they wouldn’t believe you—" She holds a hand up to silence me.

“Naomi, I know you mean well, but can you drop it? Please?”

I want to continue pushing the issue, but the look of desperation on Theia’s face stops me in my tracks. She looks so scared, terrified even. She needs help, but it’s not my secret to share.

I nod, giving Theia half a smile, before grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling my number down. “If you need anything, anything at all, no matter the time or place, call me, please. But I promise. Your secret’s safe with me.”

For now…