Page 25 of Cruel Legacy

“LJ!” I’ve called her name three times already, and she hasn’t answered. I pinch her to get her attention.

“Ow, Thea.” She rubs the spot on her arm. “What was that for?”

“I’m calling your name and you’re not listening.”

“You are?”

“Yes, LJ. I am.”

“Well, that explains it. Since you didn’t say Layla-Jean, I figured you were talking to someone else.” She mumbles the last part almost to herself.

“Well, I’m talking to you. Does everybody use your whole name like that all the time?”

“Yup.”

I give her a look that says,give me a break. “Layla-Jean is a lot to get out. How did you go this long without a nickname?”

She shrugs. “I guess it just never came up in my family. My grandmother said your name is your identity and you don’t want people getting used to using a cutesy version you can’t grow out of, because it distorts their perception of you, or something like that.”

“Well, no shade to your grandmother, but I disagree. I don’t think the name you’re given at birth dictates how people see you in life. Your actions do. Now I know you have the manners of a southern bride, but I don’t. I say what I think and feel in the moment. Five seconds after you introduced yourself, I felt like your name was just too damn long for me to be saying it all the time. It’s like the way I cringe whenever someone calls meTheona.”

She works through what I’m saying. When it clicks, she nods and says, “Oh, I get it now. Sure. You may call me LJ.”

“Was already doing that.”

She chuckles at my flippant response. When her laughter dies off, she says, “Can I ask you a question?”

I pause before responding. I don’t generally like answering questions. “Depends on what it is.”

“Where did you go to school before you moved here?”

“Nags Creek Community College.” I know she’s never heard of it, so I give her a better reference. “It’s in Nevada.”

“Oh? How far from Vegas?”

“The town is about an hour’s drive from Vegas, if you break the speed limit. Ninety plus minutes if you don’t.” Where I come from, speed limits are basically suggestions. I guess that’s why so many people’s licenses were always suspended.

That prompts her to tell me a story about a group trip a bunch of kids in her high school took to Vegas. She stops talking, mid story, along with everyone else. The entire cafeteria gets quiet. I don’t hear an alarm or some kind of public service announcement, so the instant hush seems odd to me. “What’s going on?”

“It’s them.” She whispers, before putting her finger to her mauve painted lips to silence me.

“Them, who?”

Before she can answer,theycome into view. “These pricks?” I say it loud enough to earn some dirty looks. I glare right back at the girl on my left. I know what I know. Forgive me if I didn’t drink the fucking Kool Aid.

I look around to see if maybe somebody else important, like a faculty member, is coming through the door. Nope. It’s just the three jack holes from the hallway who tried to… well, I don’t know what they call themselvestryingto do. Scare me? Whatever they hoped to accomplish didn’t work. I’ve been cornered by way scarier guys than them.

“LJ, why is everyone acting like someone flipped the off switch to their brains and mouths?”

“Because today is the day.”

“Wednesday?”

“No.The day.”

That makes even less sense than the first time she said it. “How about you talk to me like someone who doesn’t know what the hell you’re talking about, because she’s new here? Oh wait, that’s exactly what I am.”

“Today is the day the sororities and fraternities announce the beginning of pledge season. But first, Holden, Pax, and Finn are going to name two new people to sit at the Legacy table and potentially move into the Rho Beta Psi frat house, permanently.”

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