Property of Omega Pi

Prologue

Excerpted from the Omega Pi orientation presentation given to qualifying pledges seeking inclusion:

‘Omega Pi is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and actively seeks out those young women whose contributions have the potential to change the world in which we live. It is a sisterhood whose bonds transcend those of ordinary sororities. Understand that those of you who qualify for membership have been carefully chosen for consideration and represent the absolute best of the best.

It is our mission to promote the dignity and self-worth of all of our sisters with the aim of helping these extraordinary young women realize their potential by enriching their lives and preparing them for life’s journey ahead.

The Omega Pi oath is a sacred trust, a solemn promise that shall never be broken, shall never be compromised and shall endure long after each one of us as individuals have passed through the hallowed halls of academia. It is a lifelong pledge from one sister to another to uphold the values, virtues, and integrity of Omega Pi’s ideals and unwavering pursuits.

As a sisterhood, Omega Pi is greater than any single one of us. In the end we believe it is the little things that make all the difference.

First Time Away From Home

Standing beside the 2007 charcoal grey Grand Caravan in the parking lot adjacent to the student residential dorms, eighteen year old Oliver Haynes checked his wristwatch and rolled his eyes as his mother fussed with the collar of his shirt.

“My little man all grown up and headed to university,” she said, voice quavering, slightly rounded but pretty face expressive and reflecting the heavy emotion in her heart as she looked at her only child.

Looking around, he was glad to see he wasn’t the only kid bring forced to endure the public severing of the umbilicus as his mother fretted over him. Oliver made eye contact with his stepdad Stan, nonverbally imploring him to intervene.

“Samantha, please, give the boy a chance to breathe,” chuckled Stan, mindful not to let his eyes wander at the wealth of young attractive women seemingly everywhere.

Disengaging from the boy, Samantha leaned forward, lips puckered. Oliver closed his eyes and turned his head as she gave him a big noisy kiss on his cheek.

Pulling back, she held her son at arm’s length, “I can’t believe it,” she said, voice barely restraining emotion.

He nodded and grinned. His stepdad motioned to his cheek and Oliver reached up, rubbing the spot where his mother had kissed him, bringing down fingertips coated with a trace of the waxy subtle pink lipstick deposited there by the buss.

“Doesn’t he look all grown up Stan?” she said, holding her son’s shoulders and wiping away the rest of her smudge.

“Maybe he might if he didn’t have his mother draped all over him,” Stan commented jokingly, moving around the vehicle to the back of the van and opening the rear door,

For Oliver, living his entire life in a small town of less than a thousand people, coming to a large university with an undergraduate enrollment just shy of thirty thousand students was daunting, frightening, and exhilarating all at the same time. The school grounds were positively immense, sprawling almost five hundred pristine and immaculately maintained stately acres. It was bigger than his whole town and brand new world for him.

It was the Tuesday of the penultimate week before the start of new classes and new students were permitted to move into the campus dorms.

Samantha continued to fuss as Oliver while he and Stan got all of his bags and stuff up to his shared accommodation dorm room on the third floor of the building. Through the bustle of students, they found his room easily enough, two wide strips of masking tape on the wall next to the door, one with Oliver Haynes written in black magic marker over top of another name that read Cameron Crawford.

The room was fairly straight forward, broken into mirrored halves with the door situated in the middle directly across from the one window in the room. On each side was a bed, a desk, and a built in closet with shelves. There was also a metal footlocker at the foot of both beds.

The person assigned as his roommate had already been there and claimed the bed to the right of the door, so Oliver motioned to Stan to put his stuff on the left.

The departure of his parents was protracted bordering on painful as he bid farewell to his weepy eyed mother as she was being escorted from the room by his stepfather. Oliver was extraordinarily grateful for Stan, he couldn’t imagine having to deal with his mother all on his own.

Chuckling to himself, he began putting his belongings away, meticulous to the point of being borderline OCD.

“Hey, you must be Oliver,” said a baritone voice from the door standing open behind him.

Turning, Oliver was greet by a good looking, tall, lanky youth with relatively short spiky brown hair and an infectious grin wearing what appeared to be a white and blue football jersey sporting the number 31.

“Cameron, Cam,” he said with a toothy grin, extending his hand.

“Oliver,” he replied, taking the proffered hand and giving it a firm shake.

“Not Ollie?” Cam asked, breaking their grip.

Oliver chucked, “No, Oliver please,” he answered politely. He despised being called Ollie, always had, even as a child.

“Oliver it is,” Cam said with a nod.

“You like to party? You know, enjoy a little herbal remedy?” Cam asked, bringing his thumb and forefinger together and pretending to take a hoot.

Oliver smiled and shook his head. “Once or twice but not recently,” he answered honestly, having sampled it a few times but never enough to say he had really been baked.

Cam nodded, “Good to know. If you need anything, what’s mine is yours,” he offered, drifting over to his side of the room and moving his hand over top of the still unpacked luggage there.

“Thanks,” Oliver replied.

“Where you from?” Cam asked, opening up one of his travel cases.

“Upstate, a couple of hours north of here,” he replied. “You?”

“Bellingham, Washington,” he replied.

“You’re pretty far from home,” Oliver stated.

“My mom was originally from here and I’ve got a doddering grandmother going slowly senile somewhere in the area. Plus I also have an older sister who goes to this particular establishment of higher learning,” he answered, making an exasperated noise of disgust with his mouth.

“Oh?” Oliver asked.

“Sersei,” he said mockingly, talking in a higher pitched tone and shaking his head as if flicking long hair, “she’s a junior,” he added.

Oliver grinned, “I take it from your tone the two of you don’t get along so well together?” he inquired.

Rolling his blue eyes, Cam shook his head, “She’s way too high maintenance as far as I’m concerned. Over inflated sense of ego. It’s always all about her and her aspirations and goals and how I have to stop trying to nail her hot friends, yadda, yadda, yadda,” he explained adding a dismissive noise at the end.

“Junior? So she’s older?”

“Almost two years, but if you ask me she acts like another parent. It drives me absolutely crazy,” Cam said, shuffling his bags off the bed and onto the floor before flopping on the mattress. “You? Any annoying brothers or sisters north of here?”

“Only child,” he answered.

“Mom and dad together?”

“Mom and stepdad. They were here helping me get my stuff up to the room,” Oliver replied, fixing his sheets and making his bed. “How about you?”

“Just me, my mom, and Sersei. My dad apparently booked pretty early in my life and I don’t have any memories of him, just a few old photos of some dude and shit,” he answered with a mini shrug of his shoulders.

“Sorry, that’s rough,” Oliver empathized.

“What was rough was growing up with two women in the same house. Hair everywhere, bras, ugh, almost enough to drive me gay,” he paused, rolling his head to the side to look at Oliver, “You’re not gay or anything, I mean, it’s okay if you are and stuff?” he hastily added.

Oliver chuckled, “I’m not gay,” he supplied.

“Neat dresser, snappy haircut, moderately attractive dude, I’m cool with it,” he assured, arching an eyebrow.

“Not gay,” he repeated, raising his own brows and widening his eyes. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone, “Here, I’ll prove it. Got any naked pictures of your sister? Want some?” he joked.

Cam laughed, then grew serious, “Stay away from my sister. Not that I’m concerned for her sake, yours. You seem like the kind of guy she could twist around her baby finger. Trust me, you’re just better off keeping a wide berth of that she devil,” he cautioned.

“Oh?”

“She’s an Omega Pi,” Cam said, injecting false solemnity into his tone as if the words carried some degree of actual weight.

Not quite certain, “I don’t know that means,” Oliver said, frowning.

“Omega Pi?” chuckled Cam lively. “You don’t know about Omega Pi?” he asked, tone rife with disbelief.