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T URNS OUT, THERE WAS ONE free room on campus. After sitting through the rest of orientation and then waiting on the bare mattress in my soon-to-be-former room while Hoffman and Beardy (a.k.a. Mr. Dempsey, a.k.a. the housing director) conferred with everyone possible and Archie glared at me like I was leaving Girl Germs on all of his overpriced stuff, I learned that Lockwood and Rumson are each outfitted with one wheelchair-accessible room. Lockwood’s is already taken by an actual wheelchair user, but Rumson’s was taken by… Mr. Hoffman’s bike.

So, Rumson’s my official residence after all.

At least I have my own bathroom.

Does this mean phase two of my high school life has started now?

Or does it mean that it never will?

Even with my door closed (but not locked, per Camden rules for “safety reasons”) and Blackpink blaring through my laptop speakers while I make my bed and put my clothing in the provided dresser and small closet, I swear I can hear the entire school talking about me. I’d envisioned doing the moving-in part with a roommate, then wandering the halls and meeting other girls, checking out the lounge, maybe finding other people who like card games and rom-coms and planning fake trips to places they’ll probably never go. And it isn’t that I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake by coming here, exactly, since there was no way I could’ve stayed at GHS… but I’m not exactly sure I’ve traded up, either.

A knock sounds at the door, and I groan under my breath, positive it’s Hoffman and praying that if I don’t answer, he’ll just go away. Of course, he knocks again, so I drag myself over to my computer to turn down the music and swing the door open, only to reveal… Matt Haley?

“Hey there.” He flashes me the smile that has apparently dropped a thousand pairs of panties. “You must be Evie.” He holds out a hand, and for a moment, I hear Salem in my head, warning me not to shake it, because I absolutely do know where it’s been.

But Matt’s being friendly, and Salem doesn’t strike me as someone who knows the meaning of the word, so I take it. “I am. Matt, right?”

“I see my reputation has preceded me.” If possible, his smile widens even further. “You need help with anything?” He peeks his head in, and I let him; there’s really nothing to see. “Looks like you’ve still got a ways to go.”

“Actually, I’m just about done.” I’m sure other people have photographs and posters and all sorts of fun things on their shelves and walls, but I wanted as few reminders of home as possible. All I’ve got with me are some comfort reads, the deck of cards I never go anywhere without (my Emotional Support Deck, my former best friend Claire used to call it), a backup deck, and the stuffed panda I couldn’t make myself leave behind.

His smile falters into an O. “Is this seriously all you brought?”

“Of course not. My driver will be coming around with my queen-size canopy bed within the hour.”

He gives me a funny look, I guess unimpressed by my British accent, and then shrugs and asks if he can come inside.

Technically, guys and girls are only allowed in each other’s rooms during intervisitation hours in the evenings, but even more technically, that’s a dorm-based rather than gender-based rule, so I guess it’s okay? Neither Hoffman nor Dempsey had time to get into the finer logistics, especially since Hoffman was busy pouting that his precious bike would have to live in the bike racks with the—ew—students’.

I step aside and let him in.

“You didn’t bring any pictures?”

“Who prints pictures these days?” I ask airily, holding up my own phone. “I brought plenty.”

It’s a lie. I deleted almost all of them and hid the ones I couldn’t bear to part with but also couldn’t look at ever again.

His mouth twitches like he doesn’t quite believe me but he’s wisely decided to drop it. Clearly, he’s got bigger fish to fry. “Listen, I wanted to run something by you. Not that I need you to do anything,” he adds quickly. “It’s just… you’re not a narc, are you?”

“Me?” I blink. I don’t even know what to say to that very unexpected question.

“I didn’t think so. You seem like a cool girl.” It’s a canned line, but combined with his most charming smile and the biceps peeking out of his sleeves, I’m starting to Get It, even if he and his whole thing are not my type. “So, listen. I’ve kinda got an in at the housing office, and I specifically chose my room for its… discreet location. Every now and again, I get after-hours visitors who’d really like to be able to come and go as they please.”

“And you want them to come and go through my room? That’s—”

“No, of course not.” He points at my window. “I have a rope ladder. But it will go past your window. I just wanna make sure you’ll be… looking the other way.”

A rope ladder. Jesus. Salem was not kidding. “We’re talking fully consensual visitors?”

“Always,” he says firmly.

I shrug. “Then it’s fine with me. It’s your roommate you’re gonna have to work stuff out with.”

“Psh, Salem I can handle. You’re the one who makes me nervous,” he says with a wink. “Glad you’re chill.” He gives me a little punch on the shoulder, and I’m mad that I don’t hate it. “I gotta run, but I’ll catch you later. I owe you one.”

He slips out, and I just shake my head and turn my music back up. I know Matt was just buttering me up to buy my silence, but I can’t pretend I didn’t like being called “chill” and “a cool girl.” Back in Greentree, next to Sierra, no one would ever think of me as the cool one—not when she was dancing on tables at parties or kicking ass at beer pong or snagging every single guy (and occasional girl) in sight. Certainly not when I was working so hard to be the best girlfriend I could be by making Craig and his stupid friends snack platters while they played video games. Or when I was so committed to helping Claire with her art that I’d spend entire yawning afternoons modeling for portraits. Or all the times I put my own studying and hobbies on hold so I could help them with math (Craig), English papers (Claire), or bio (both).

God forbid I be anything but the perfect girlfriend, perfect best friend. But then, a boyfriend and a best friend were the two things I had in life that my sister didn’t, and it was impossible not to want to hold them close.

Of course, she took them anyway.

But here… there’s no Sierra. I don’t have to prove I’m “good enough” to earn my space in her shadow. And now I have something no other girl on campus has or will have: a room in an all-boys dorm. So maybe this isn’t ruining what’s supposed to be the perfect reset of my life.

Maybe it’s actually the perfect opportunity to do things differently.

How? I don’t know yet. But that’s okay. I’m a blank slate with nothing but time to figure it out.

Or not. Because everywhere I go for orientation events today, people seem to know who I am.

On the group tour, a couple of my new dormmates I recognize from orientation suggest with dancing eyebrows that we work out a shower schedule.

At the campus store, a guy I’ve never seen before suggests I see if they carry boxers so I can better fit in at Rumson.

Another pointedly lets me know that he’s heard I have my own private room, emphasis on private.

I don’t know how news got around so fast, or why all these people have to be so fucking creepy, but the entire morning is filled with pointing and whispering and strangers greeting me with variations on “Hey, aren’t you the Rumson Girl?”

That’s me: the Rumson Girl. Exactly what I’ve always dreamed.

“It’s Evie, actually,” I tell the guy who stops me in Beasley Dining Hall, a.k.a. the Beast, where I’m just trying to get some lunch fuel to get me through the rest of this day.

“Yeah, I heard about you. Heard you’re Archie Buchanan’s roommate,” he says with a shit-eating grin, punctuated by a huge dimple. He’s got the same kind of overly styled look Archie does, and the same vibe exuding way too much money.

“You heard wrong,” I say, sidestepping him neatly in my quest for the baked-potato bar; there is no way I’m letting this dude get between me and my bacon bits.

“Does that mean you’re still in need of a bedmate?” he calls after me, but thankfully, he doesn’t follow. I shudder the interaction off me and get in line behind a broad set of shoulders in a striped polo. I’m balancing the tray in one hand and sneaking a piece of smoky bacon into my mouth with the other when I hear the cutest accent in the entire world, sweeter than maple syrup, saying, “Why thank you, ma’am.”

I look up, having to see the face that belongs to those four words, and I am not disappointed. Striped Polo looks like walking, talking sunshine—healthy golden tan, healthy golden hair, and a smile warm enough to ward off the New Hampshire chill I know from experience will be here before we know it.

He looks like he grew up on a farm, or at the very least is definitely not from around here; not one single thing about him reminds me of a certain ex, including the way he catches my eye and gives me a nod and confident smile as he walks past.

What is it they say? The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else? Well, Craig Larson is definitely in my rearview, and Farmboy shows some interesting potential.

Here’s hoping he doesn’t know me as the Rumson Girl.

“Your drool is gonna stain the linoleum,” a voice behind me says as I watch Farmboy take a seat at an otherwise full table, squeezing in next to a girl with a neat French braid.

I whirl around to see Salem standing behind me with a green apple in hand, no tray. “So’s your jealousy.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Neither do you.” But I appreciate the wake-up call, noxious as it was, and I finally move again, taking a seat at an empty table. Salem joins me a minute later, having added a tall cup of Coke to his nutritious lunch. “Is that really all you’re eating?”

“My mom says it’s not polite to comment on others’ food,” he informs me, taking a big bite of apple that sprays juice squarely on my cheek.

“Yeah, clearly your mom raises charmers.” I wipe off my face and return my gaze to Farmboy’s table. French Braid is practically in his lap, which I’m sure doesn’t mean anything. They’re probably cousins, or even siblings. They kind of look alike, if you squint hard enough until all you can see is that they’re both white.

“You’re pretty superior for someone who gave my roommate the green light to hang a sex ladder from our window.”

“As if you won’t find any way to benefit from that.” I roll my eyes away from Farmboy and dig in to my baked potato. Mmm , the ultimate comfort food. “You’re living on a campus full of horny teenagers with minimal supervision. Go wild.”

“Oh yeah? Is that what you plan to do here? Go wild?”

“Oh no, Evie Riley does not go wild,” I tell him, gesturing with my fork. “My sister does that enough for the both of us. I am the one who behaves and then gets treated like shit as a result.” Whoops, maybe a little too much information there. Thankfully, I’m talking to someone who definitely does not care and will not be internalizing any of it. “But I’m not gonna begrudge Matt enjoying himself. Unless I have to listen to squeaky springs through the ceiling. Then I may have to get him expelled.”

Salem eyes me like he’s not sure I’m kidding, and I just shrug and take another bite. Farmboy is a nice fantasy, but when it comes down to it, what am I really gonna do—make an excuse to talk to him, maybe exchange names, and then what? I was with Craig for six months, and most of that time was spent holding hands at school and hanging out with his friends in his basement while they played video games. I wouldn’t know how to “go wild” even if I wanted to.

People would probably be so disappointed in the Rumson Girl if they knew.

I spend the rest of the afternoon buying my books and meeting with my academic advisor, and after, I have just enough time before our individual grade activities start to let myself into Lockwood to catch a glimpse of where I was supposed to be, and hopefully meet some of the girls I was supposed to be living with.

It’s a twin building to Rumson, so the blueprint is the same in mirror image, but it’s easy to see little differences right off the bat—a vase of fresh flowers in the entryway where Rumson has nothing, cute signs on the doors as opposed to hastily scrawled names on whiteboards, the smells of scented candles and hair products rather than sweat and cheap cologne… This is definitely where I was supposed to be.

I try to ignore the slowly building ache in my heart that feels like envy and nostalgia had a really ugly baby.

Scanning the door signs, I murmur the names of the girls who’ll be my classmates (and hopefully eventually dormmates, if I have my way) for the next three years—Cassie and Emmy and Mika and—

A yelp, followed by “What is that?”

Well, sounds like someone might be having a worse first day than I am. I don’t wanna be nosy, but, well, I could stand to feel a little better about myself right now, so I shuffle back through the hall until I find the room I’m looking for (“Heather” and “Sabrina”), which is pretty easy to do since one girl looks like she’s gonna pass out and the other one is holding something furry and black and almost definitely not dorm-sanctioned.

But is it alive? That much I can’t tell, although the goth girl is holding it like a precious baby.

“It’s my familiar,” she says in a hurt voice, petting the Thing, and it hits me in a rush of coal-black hair and milk-white skin that this absolutely has to be Salem’s twin. “His name is Checkers. And he’s only the stuffed-animal version of the real Checkers, who’s home with my parents, so chill out.”

Heather breathes a sigh of relief, and I guess I do too, because she turns to me suddenly, her neat French braid swinging against her shoulder. Which is when I realize that it’s the same girl from the Beast—the one who was sitting with Farmboy. She immediately breaks into a warm, welcoming smile, a glaring contrast to Sabrina’s resting witch face.

“Hi! I’m Heather. This is Sabrina. Are you on the first floor too?”

“Yes, but different dorm.” Might as well test the waters for how this is gonna go over. “There was a whole screwup with my name—I go by Evie, but my name is Everett—and now I’m in Rumson. I have my own room and bathroom, so at least I don’t have to deal with pee all over the seat and whatever other grossness I’m about to learn boys do.”

“Oh, the limit does not exist,” Sabrina says dryly, and as she rolls her eyes, I see they’re exactly the same stormy gray as Salem’s.

“You’re Salem’s twin, right?”

If I hadn’t been sure before, the identical way her eyebrow rises a thousand feet in the air answers my question before the words “How the hell do you know my brother?” can even leave her mouth.

Oh, how to even begin answering that… “We met at dorm orientation. He seems like a nice guy. Sort of.” Nice enough, anyway. “We just had lunch together, too. Also sort of.”

She snorts. “If he was nice to you, he must think you’ve got decent weed.”

Ah, someday I think Sabrina and I are gonna have a lot of lovely talks about siblings who suck.

“So they put you in a boys’ dorm?” Heather furrows her neat brows. “That’s a pretty nerve-racking first day, isn’t it?” Then I guess she realizes I’m still standing in the doorway, looking like a creeper. “Come in, come in.”

I do, and immediately take in the way their room looks as if each half is in a different universe. There’s no confusion over whose half is whose, either, unless Heather is way more into pentagrams than she lets on. “It was not a great start!” I concede, grabbing Heather’s desk chair for myself.

“What’s the deal with your hair?” Sabrina asks, eyeing me like an exhibit at the clown museum. “It’s fascinating.”

“Sabrina!”

“No, no, it’s fine,” I assure Heather, tugging on a springy blond curl. “No one’s ever that direct about it. I mostly get a lot of staring and an occasional ‘Is that real?’ It is, for the record—not just me going wild with a curling iron.”

“Well, it’s pretty epic,” says Sabrina, and I can’t tell if it’s a compliment.

I offer a “Thanks?” anyway, and she nods, so I guess it was.

“So what’s it like living there?” Heather asks as she pulls a bunch of random stuff from her bag, including a stuffed unicorn, a stack of picture frames, and an extremely well-loved fantasy novel I recognize as being one of Claire’s favorites. For a brief moment, I miss my former best friend, and the way she’d drag me to the bookstore every single time a new sci-fi novel with a Black main character released, how she’d call them her “supreme autobuys” and hug them to her chest.

Then I push her out of my head so I can answer Heather. “It’s still new, but I have a feeling it’s going to be very… loud. And that I should really stock up on scented candles, or at least air freshener. I’ve never been so grateful not to have to share a bathroom in my entire life.”

“I’ve never actually had my own bathroom,” says Heather, arranging the frames on her shelves so I can see an array of photographs of her with a pair of girls who must be her little sisters and a woman who looks like Heather with a “You in Twenty Years” filter on. It’s an entire family of French-braided doppelg?ngers. “Our apartment only has one bathroom for the four of us, which was another point in favor of boarding school. At least here, when we share, there’s more than one shower.”

“Yeah, I definitely don’t miss sharing with my sister,” I mutter, watching Heather arrange the stuffed unicorn on her pillow.

“And I will not miss Salem being obnoxious about my hair being everywhere.” Sabrina grips her wild mass of black waves in one hand and swings it over her shoulder. “I guess boarding school does have its perks.”

“Salem mentioned being a transfer,” I say to Sabrina, “so I guess you are too?” She nods, and I look to Heather.

“Not me,” she says, pulling the last few items from her suitcase and closing it up. “I was here last year too, and I loved it. Don’t worry, I wasn’t sure about it either, at first. My mom was having such a tough time being there for all three of us, and my grandma suggested it might be easier on everyone if there were one fewer kid to shuttle around everywhere. My sisters both cried at the thought, but I like trying new things, so, I said I’d give it a shot, and here I am again the next year. You’ll both love it as much as I do, I’m sure of it.”

“I like your confidence,” I tell Heather, both of us ignoring the way Sabrina rolls her eyes. “I did choose to come here, so I definitely hope to like it, but I, uh, did not choose the whole boys’ dorm thing, or to have random assholes on campus cracking jokes at me like I begged to live there so I could catch glimpses of bare boy ass in the showers.”

She seems to think on that for a second before offering a hopeful shrug and a “This too shall pass?”

“Here’s hoping. But now you’re both required by law to be my friends, so that I don’t become completely warped and maladjusted. I’ve already spent way too many hours of my life watching boys play video games in dank basements, thank you very much.”

“Deal,” says Heather sweetly, and I take Sabrina’s grunt to mean the same.

I help them finish unpacking and get their luggage into storage, and by the time we’re done, the big orientation icebreaker dinner is nearly upon us. I’m feeling grungy and dusty from the combo of the bus ride this morning and the whole rest of the day, so I say goodbye to Heather, Sabrina, and The Dorm That Should Be Mine and head back across the patio to Rumson so I can rinse myself off and change into something that’ll hopefully make a better first impression.

The whole time, I try not to feel bitter that if I just lived where I was supposed to, the three of us could get ready together, help one another pick outfits, do one another’s makeup… it’s exactly the kind of thing I pictured when I applied to boarding school.

Instead, I’m gonna have to walk through clouds of Axe body spray and guys loudly calling one another “Asswipe” on the way to my room, where I’ll change while double-checking about twelve times to make sure the door is locked.

New start, yaaaaay.