Synopsis: The future of AG is discussed, and Allison makes a decision

“What are we looking at? What is this?” Brianna demanded as she stared at Remy’s iPad. It was the same iPad that they’d used in the conference room after rush. Kind of funny to see Amber Geer standing on the other side of it.

“This is a press release from Alpha Gamma,” Amanda explained. “A very, very poorly written one. After it came out and was actually posted on our website, I went to confront Lydia in her office. When I say confront I mean I broke the door handle off with a fire extinguisher because she’d barricaded herself in there with a dozen cases of boxed wine. Not a pretty picture.”

“Okay,” I frowned. “Why would she do that? What triggered that?”

“A series of blog posts,” My mother said. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, I think maybe Brianna and Remy have been keep you busy but…there’s a campaign encouraging people to walk away from Alpha Gamma. It’s all because of your pledge. You made an impact.”

“Mom…” I nearly whispered. “If I caused that…I’m sorry. This is…this was your house. Alpha Gamma is where you pledged to.”

“Sweetie,” She said, taking my hand. “I pledged to a chapter, not to Panhellenic. If I’d known how they were going to treat my daughter years later then maybe I wouldn’t have made that pledge in the first place. But I did, and now we’re here. The question is what we’re going to do about it.”

Okay I’m going to say this now: I was shocked. So completely and utterly shocked. My mother had never spoken to me in this manner before; it was almost as if she saw me as an equal rather than as just her kid. Is this how Brianna felt all the time?

“Here’s one of the blog posts,” Remy handed me the tablet.

“Wow, this is intense,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “An actual AG president quit over me? Also…what is this timestamp? It says EST? Shouldn’t it be EDT for Eastern Daylight Time?”

“Allison,” Remy said quietly. “Who cares about the timestamp?”

“Well if we’re in daylight savings—”

“NO ONE CARES!” Remy screamed.

“Right, right,” I said, my eyes wide. “I’m…sorry. But anyway, what are we all doing here? What does this have to do with…me?”

“The Walk Away movement resonated with a lot of people. AG lost…some serious membership over the last week. You have to understand that we’re living at the height of transgender acceptance right now. There are so many people that have transgender friends and family members; it’s not a social taboo anymore. Your pledge really struck a chord with them and no one wants to be part of an organization that does…what AG did,” Amanda said simply. “I know I don’t. I’ve been friends with your mother for over thirty years and I’m utterly appalled that anyone would treat either of her daughters that way.”

“So what you’re saying is…” I said, too confused to actually finish the sentence in its entirety.

“What we’re saying is that this house, this chapter along with the other chapters across the United States will defect from Alpha Gamma and form our own sorority. We’ve been in contact with many of the others that have followed suit and they’re in favor of forming under a different charter. Money? We’re okay in that regard and your mother has already been on the phone with her lawyers; we’re going to get this house.”

“Wait, you can…we can do…that?” I was stunned. How could a change this huge have happened right in front of me?

“We can,” Remy nodded. “And we’re going to, but that leaves one very important question. You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, YOU,” Brianna nodded.

“When you left after Rush,” Remy walked up to me, taking my hands as she spoke. “You maybe had…twelve or thirteen hours of freedom before we called you. Ever since then we’ve been controlling your life in every way possible. It was kind of fun at first but now we’re at a point where you need to take control of yourself and your life. You still have a lot to learn, and I’ll work on it with you no matter what, but now, you need to decide where you want to be. You can join our new sorority, you can join another sorority, you can even dump the whole Greek thing and go back to living in a dorm. Or with your sister. Whatever you want to do. This is your life now. You tell us what you want to do, and you don’t even have to decide n—”

“Remy,” I said. “Of course I want to join you guys, in whatever you do. You’re my sisters. You took me in and changed my life. Look at me; I wouldn’t LOOK like this if it wasn’t for you. I’d still be that depressed guy who rushed sororities in drag. I WANT to be around you, all of you. I can’t think of a better college experience.”

“Then I, for one, am honored to have you with us,” Remy smiled. I leaned in to kiss her and she playfully bit my nose. I jumped a little bit and yelped as my stitches stretched again and she apologized profusely while helping me to sit down on the couch.

“How…how do we get started?” I kind of groaned as I laid back into the couch with Remy stroking my hair.”

“It starts with a letter,” Amanda explained. “We draft a letter to Alpha Gamma announcing our intention to withdraw from their organization and then all of the members here will have to sign it. Now normally they would tell us to vacate the house, but Mrs. Parsons here is working with her lawyers to make sure we get it. We’ve also been speaking to other chapters, since Alpha Gamma lost 55% of their active members. If we can get those houses too we’ll really be in business.”

“Okay, okay hold up,” I said. “I know my family has money but we can’t pay for all of those houses. The utility bills alone—”

“Um…member dues?” Laura looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“She doesn’t know,” Remy shrugged.

“Wait,” Laura said, practically choking. “She’s been living in the house and you didn’t tell her about dues? She hasn’t been paying at all?”

“You know it uh, didn’t really occur to me to charge her for what basically amounts to mental torture.”

“We weren’t torturing her!” Laura said insistently.

“Kinda were, I’m pretty sure I remember you suggesting that we sit her down in a chair and make her put lipstick on until she gets it on straight. You were literally ready to go to the dollar store and buy all the lipstick they had.”

“Oh come on!” Laura rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing we didn’t all have to do when we were kids!” Laura crossed her arms and looked at all of us. Very slowly, every head in the room turned toward her until she began to frown. “Everyone else had to do that, right?”

“Moving on,” Remy said, rolling her eyes. “Let’s figure out what this letter is going to say so we can split off as soon as possible. I want to get this done and over with.”

“Okay, I have an idea,” Arianna spoke up. “To whom it may concern: fuck you.”

There were a few giggles and Remy raised her hand, calling for silence. For the next few hours we worked on the letter, read it over, and then read it over again to make sure it said exactly what we wanted. The entire time, I couldn’t help but think that if I hadn’t rushed a few weeks ago, we wouldn’t be here right now doing this. Alpha Gamma would be going about business as usual and I never would have met any of these amazing women. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt; it was almost as if I had ruined their sorority. I didn’t dare say that out loud thought, Remy would have shut me down immediately.

Finally, after a few hours, we had our draft and Laura used the office printer to make a copy. We all passed it around and signed with a black pen. It kind of felt like we were signing the Declaration of Independence or something.

“Okay, now,” Remy said as she folded the paper and put it into an envelope. “Because Lydia never checks the mail at the main office, we’re going to have Mrs. Parson’s lawyers deliver this in person. It’ll take a few days for the ball to start rolling, but after we’re sure they’ve gotten the letter we’ll make a post online declaring our intentions. We won’t have any trouble getting the house, but we do need to come up with new letters. I think we can all agree that we’ll want to stick with the Greek theme and all of the traditions that it entails. On that note, we come back to Allison.”

“Me again?” I tried to lean forward but only managed to get a few inches off the back of the couch before collapsing back into it.

“Stop moving around,” Remy scolded me. “All of this happened because of you. Because of you we were able to see Alpha Gamma for what it really is, and what it IS, is an outdated organization that can’t appreciate the uniqueness in people. You’ve made the choice to stay with us, and I think that I have an officer position for you.”

“Um, I’m a pledge,” I said as I stared up at the ceiling. “Pledges can’t be officers.”

“You wouldn’t be a pledge once we started up.” Remy said. “We would activate you right away. I think you’ve earned it by now.”

There were affirming murmurs all around, I guess they agreed with Remy.

What…kind of position?” I asked.

“You wanted to fight, for the rights of trans people,” She said. “I think that’s wonderful, but I also think you’re inexperienced. I think there’s so much you can learn here, which is why I want you to be the trans liaison for the house. When we sign our charter, yes, we’ll be accepting trans rushes. There’s a chance we won’t get many, but on the off chance that we do, you would communicate their needs to myself and the rest of the house. It might not always be the easiest job in the world, but you remember what it was like for you at first? You probably felt like no one understood you and having a liaison would have made all the difference in the world.”

She was right. It would be a huge responsibility but I could help so many people. I wanted to do it.

“Okay,” I said. “I would love to do that.”

“Good,” She said. “So now that that’s settled, we need to move on to the name. We have to come up with something, so come on people, brainstorm, figure something out, before doomsday, please.”

There was a bit more murmuring, before finally, Cassandra came forward from the crowd.

“I think I may have something,” She said. She reached down onto the table and picked up a yellow legal pad that was sitting next to the TV remote. She quickly wrote something down and handed it to Remy.

“Yep,” Remy said. “I think that’ll work.”