Page 10 of Love Legacy

“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 saysWelcome 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, withBeta Nuunderneath. 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 senda 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.”

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