Page 4 of The Roommate (One Night #1)

“What could I have said to raise you from the dead?”

“ Goodness! You’re finally there. I’m sorry, I wish we were doing this together but you know Dad’s situation. ”

“It’s alright. In a way we are doing it together, you’re just not here physically.”

“ Hang on—that door opens to the bathroom. Oh, we’re sharing. ” Clarissa’s fake excitement fades away at that.

The room is simple, small, and white. Two desks attached to the wall, a single cupboard with two columns, a small arch window, the private bathroom (thank God it’s not communal), and two beds separated by a common bedside table.

It doesn’t have much space to walk around.

Clair keeps on talking about how we can decorate it all, and lists everything we will do together.

Just me and her against the world.

I do my best to maintain the smile on my face. Not feeling even an ounce of excitement, not when my heart is full of dread. Not when even after finally being away from home, all I want to do is run back to Mayrindale.

The nightmare still haunts me. It’s been worse ever since I stepped in USA. Logic says Blackwood and Silveridge are at opposite ends, thousands of miles away. There is not a single chance he should be here. But the comeback of my nightmares don’t help either.

At this point, I didn’t think that missing my Dad more could be possible, but apparently it is. No one is here, and I’ve never felt this alone before.

Clair and I were supposed to enter our hostel together, but she couldn’t leave early because of her father’s trial. She might not say it but the shadow in her excitement betrays her fear—her father might go to jail. Thus, she is there with him. I understand her, and it’s alright.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t delay because well, it’s already been nine years of me living in the hellhole of my house, it doesn’t matter how scared I am.

A pang hits my chest at the thought that I have left my mother alone, in her condition.

But to spend even a day more made me want to drown just like my father did.

Ever since he died, everything has straight out gone to hell.

The rest of the day passes in a blur, unpacking and arranging my stuff. I didn’t bring much—not that I had much to bring. But it was still a task to organize every single thing perfectly…

I lied. It’s not alright. I need my best friend with me even if it makes me selfish. It is at this moment that I realize just how alone I truly am. And it hurts. It feels like an empty hole where my heart should have been.

By the time I finish, all I want to do is pick up a book and read until I pass out…which I do soon enough as exhaustion takes over me, without even giving me a chance to open the book.

Three days.

That’s how long I’ve been holed up in my dorm room, drowning in this new book I bought on my way here—Blackwood.

Three days of ignoring the world—unless it’s Clair’s pixelated smile on my screen or the hollow silence where my mother’s voice should have been. The landline number at my home rings and rings, but she never picks up.

Sebastian and Hana tried to get me to go with them to the frat house party tonight, but it takes place every Friday there (or so I have heard), so maybe next time.

The two of them are the first friends I made on my second day—or more like, they made me their friends.

They are also my neighbors. Hana showed up with brownies, Seb trailing behind her; I couldn’t help but smile at their sweetness and Hana’s brightest smile that can blind the sun itself.

It reminded me of when mom used to bake pies for new neighbors.

Since we had nothing to do as there is still one week left for the classes to begin, all I did was read the entire time—curled up in my bed with my latest obsession, and completely lost in the fantasy.

I close my eyes, a moan escaping my lips as I imagine myself in her place—the book’s FMC. The way she’s being punished and how he keeps bringing her to the edge, I can almost feel his eyes on me.

In some sick way, I want to feel that punishment, and more.

Being a goodie has been working well my entire life, but it doesn’t mean that I want everything good and vanilla.

I need the filth. The ruin. The kind of pleasure that leaves bruises.

A sharp rattle at the door snaps me back to reality.

My heart stutters in my chest. There is no way anyone should be here. The door shakes again with the impatient and violent twisting of the knob. Like, whoever it is seems to come with a mission of breaking down the door if it doesn’t open right this moment.

It is, I check the clock, 2 a.m. What the hell? I swear it was ten p.m. just now . My breath hitches as my turned-on state trades for fear.

Is it Seb or Hana—drunk and mistaking my room for theirs? But my gut coils tight, instinct hissing danger.

I quickly text on the group chat Hana created ‘Bad Mouthing Ms. Rosalind’ about where they are and got a reply almost immediately too.

If it’s not them, then who?

Who can it even be at this hour?

Everyone is at the party taking place tonight, as far as I know.

And it’s definitely not Clarissa. She is not the type to give surprises. Unless it is to orchestrate someone’s downfall, which I’m sure is not the case in mine.

The door shudders under another brutal knock.

And it is as scary as a horror movie.

I can either put my earphones on, ignore the world and sleep, or I can be one of those stupid heroines who die first in the horror films and open the door.

I hate horror films.

I internally scream at myself to get it together.

Damn you, Clarissa, for talking about serial killers last Halloween.

Maybe if I stay quiet enough, whoever it is will go away thinking that I’m at the party too.

Maybe I’m just thinking too much.

I take a deep breath, and move towards my possible death, clutching a steel bottle in hand. I crack the door open—just enough to see.

A man, his back facing me, surrounded by a travel bag and sealed boxes. It worries me more. Is it…a roommate? Wrong room. My roommate is Clarissa, definitely not a man. And suddenly, I feel super annoyed. Both at him and myself—

He immediately turns around, a scowl adorning his face. My annoyance-filled relief doesn’t last long as I see who it is.

It is way worse than a serial killer or a ghost.

Did I doze off while reading the book, and by any chance, this is just a nightmare?

No way.

It can’t be real.

I close my eyes praying this is some mistake or I’m hallucinating vividly, and he is not real. He’s not here. I’ll wake up, and he will disappear.

“Well, well, well. Hello there, roomie.” His voice is deeper than I remember.

Why are you real?

I think, as I open my eyes and still see the face of the person, I thought I would never see again.

Wait—did he just call me his roomie ?