Giving me a withering stare, my suitemate clambers to her feet, clutches her laptop close to her chest and stomps into our suite. I hear three rapid taps on wood and then her shout, “Keep that shit down!” before she slams her bedroom door.

Lara gives me an apologetic look. “Ugh ... sorry, Evie. She’s just in a bad mood about that paper, and then now with Corinne in there with Elliot...”

Who the hell is Elliot? Suddenly, all thoughts about Rhys Delane fly out the window as my eyebrows jerk together in confusion. Lara flushes and stares down at her screen to avoid making eye contact.

“Daniel Hanson’s roommate? You know him, right?” I rack my brain for a second until a vague memory of the short, dark-haired guy I played beer pong against once pops into my head. Since then, I’ve seen him with Daniel, and I’ve seen him around my suite a couple times, but never with Corinne. And when I realize why I’ve seen him, I keep the muscles in my face relaxed as Lara expands, “He’s been hooking up with Hannah.”

She stands up and peers into our suite at my closed door before shaking her head, the tail of her loose French braid swinging against her back. “Guess that’s over. Night, Evie.”

***

To my relief, and disappointment, Rhys is distant the next day and during our next lesson on Monday, so I’m not left thinking too hard on him. I’m grateful for this because, though I swore up and down to myself I wouldn’t let anything like this happen to me this year, I find myself caught in the middle of a rift between Corinne and Hannah. Although there are no actual words exchanged—except for on Saturday night when my roommate stumbles in drunk after partying and Hannah flips out about all the noise she makes—the atmosphere in our suite is frigid all weekend.

I’ve been avoiding saying anything directly to Corinne. For starters, I don’t exactly know what to say. I don’t want to come off preachy—because, with my history, that’s the last thing I am—but I also know that unless Hannah stands down soon, I’m going to have to eventually say something.

It’s not until a week later on Friday, when Corinne finds me in the D-hall, that she finally talks to me directly. Sitting down in front of me, she buries her face in her hands before pushing back her curly hair and coiling it into a knot on top of her head.

“What’s up?”

“What do I do about Hannah?” she sighs, releasing her hair to tumble around her delicate features.

I trace my fingertip along the cold rim of my Coke can. “Do you think you were wrong?”

“They weren’t dating,” she quickly assures me, which I already know. Lowering her green eyes to her hands, she shrugs. “I know what she’s saying about me. She won’t say it to my face because I’m guessing she’s afraid I’ll go off on her or something, but I know she’s telling anyone who’ll listen that I’m a slut.”

Even when it’s not being directed at me, I hate that word. Hate it with a passion. I stab my plastic fork into my untouched hamburger and shake my head. “She hasn’t called you that to me.”

Corinne releases a hysterical noise from the back of her throat and laughs. “Because you’re hostile and like a foot taller than she is.” I press my lips together at her description of me, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she implores, “Evie, what should I do? It was one time, I swear, and I was just pissed because of Daniel.”

Daniel. Learning that Corinne and Elliot went down because of something that has to do with Daniel instantly ruins my appetite, and I lean back in my seat, dropping my fork. There’s a lot I want to tell my roommate. I want to tell her that even though this campus is big—much bigger than the school I went to last year—even the slightest ding on her reputation might have a ripple effect. I want to tell her that no matter how good retaliation might feel when it’s happening, there’s always something that will come along to wipe out that satisfaction.

I want to tell her that all of this has happened to me, and I don’t want her to screw herself up like I did.

But before I can say anything, she sucks in a deep breath and when I lift my eyes from my tray, I realize that her expression has fallen. “You know what? Never mind.” Grabbing her bag, she jumps up from the table. “Forget I asked. I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“Wait.” I come to my feet ready to go after her, but she continues to walk quickly, nearly knocking over Nathan as he walks toward my table.

“Shit,” I grind out, slamming back into my seat. I massage each of my index fingers over either side of my nose and shoot a look over at him, meeting his questioning blue eyes. “It’s not you, it’s just—”

“Trouble in paradise?”

I groan. “Even worse. Fight between her and one of our suitemates.”

“That bad?”

Rubbing my hands over my face, I nod. “So much that I’m actually foaming at the mouth for fall break to come in a few weeks,” I admit, hating that my words are actually true. Since returning to Richmond after Labor Day a couple weeks ago, I’ve talked to my parents a total of two times. Still, I’ll take their love-stoned, let’s-pretend-nothing-ever-happened and my father pointing out how lucky I am he picked up the tab after my music scholarship was cancelled any day over living in my hostile suite.

At least at home, there are two other floors I can exile myself to if things get out of hand.

Cringing, Nathan takes a bite of his steak wrap. “Fun times. Sadly—and I guess, luckily—I’ve seen my suitemates maybe once, and my roommate is always gone.”

I swirl one of my fries around in ketchup and then wipe my hands on a napkin. “I’d go with luckily.”

We finish lunch together in silence, before I head to my last class of the afternoon—English. I’m distracted the entire time, mostly because of Corinne, but also because voice lessons are next. Although the last week has been pretty tame, Rhys always manages to unnerve me.

I’m in my own world as I leave Stanfield Hall and cut through the student union to get to my lesson on time, so I don’t hear my name being called until strong fingers touch my shoulder. I jerk around in surprise, relaxing just a little when my eyes skim over Daniel’s face.

“Seriously. That is the quickest way to get pepper-sprayed, Hollister,” I inform him hotly, spinning back around. He catches up quickly, his long stride matching my own.

“Hollister?”

Dodging his question, I point up ahead to McGregor Hall, the music building. “I’ve got a voice lesson and my instructor is a real bitch if I’m late, so what’s up?”

“Corinne—” he starts, and I slow my pace significantly, my breath catching as I wait for him to finish. I’m guessing that with Elliot being his roommate, he’s already well aware of what’s going on. Even though I know very little about Elliot, I’m willing to bet money that the first person he went bragging to was Daniel, which pisses me off. I turn and lean in toward him, not caring that the people walking behind us have to break to move around. Glancing away from my stare, Daniel sheepishly rubs his palm over his short blond hair.

“Can you let her know she doesn’t have to avoid my texts?” he finally asks.

My lips part in surprise, but I quickly blurt out, “Sure. I mean, of course. I’ll tell her when I see her tonight.”

I start to tell him that my undecided opinion of him just went up ten notches, but then he flashes me a straight white grin, his eyes dipping to give me a swift once-over, from the brown suede toes of my flats to the hat on my head, taking in every inch of my olive skin that’s visible along the way, and I scale that back to five notches.

He starts to say something else, but then he shakes his head. “I appreciate it, Evie,” he says before taking off in the opposite direction.

But I’m smiling when I enter the practice room a few minutes later with thirty seconds to spare. After five minutes of sitting at the piano bench, waiting alone, though, that smile begins to fade.