Chapter 2
two
ROSIE
“If you’re mad at me, you can say it, you know. I wouldn’t even blame you.”
Liliana’s wavy brown hair whips into her face when she turns to me, again, and asks me the same question… again.
“How many times do I have to reassure you I’m not mad that you’re moving in with your boyfriend?”
My best friend sighs before grabbing the packing tape off my barren desk and closing the box of makeup organizers.
“I know you said it was okay,” she says in a small voice, nervously tugging at her pink blouse. “But I can move in with Grant later, and we can stay roommates, and you don’t have to worry about living on campus.”
While I would usually credit Liliana’s constant questioning to her overthinking, this time, it makes more sense why she doesn’t believe me. Why she thinks I’m lying when I say I’m okay with her giving me less than a month’s notice to move out of our apartment.
I expect most people would be pissed. Finding another place so last minute wasn’t easy. I should be upset my roommate is ditching me for her boyfriend, but I can’t be.
My cut-and-dry, black-and-white thinking best friend has found someone that makes her change her life’s perspective. She does spontaneous things and takes a break from her carefully curated agendas. I haven’t seen Liliana happier, or more carefree, than when she’s with Grant.
I’m not upset she wants to be surrounded by that all the time. Finding comfort in a person rather than a place is something special.
So, as much as Lil tries to apologize and offer to call off this milestone in her relationship, it’s not necessary. I would never blame her for taking that jump. I love love, and love has found Liliana. I would never keep my best friend from that.
I tighten my ponytail, roll out my neck, and continue packing away nail polish bottles.
“Living on campus might be good for me.” I lift my tone at the end of the sentence. “Maybe it’ll help me get an edge for the quant research internship.”
The crease of her eyebrows deepens. “How would living on campus help you with that?”
“No idea. Maybe I’ll see Dr. Adebayo one night after class and will save her from a swarm of bees or something. I don’t know.” I shrug. Liliana’s face drops, hip popped in annoyance. “What?”
“A swarm of bees is going to help you get an internship?”
“It’s better than nothing!”
She rolls her eyes and releases a soft chuckle under her breath, but part of me is deadly serious. If that’s what it takes, I’d do it. I think I’d do anything for a chance to work at Xion Group, even if it’s not a guaranteed placement after my master’s program.
I want to say that being at the top of my cohort is enough to secure it. Being above my classmates in performance, with stellar undergraduate credentials and years of advanced classes, should be enough to make me a shoe-in.
No one in my financial engineering program will explicitly say I’m judged by factors other than academics and experience, but they don’t have to. It’s obvious when they whisper behind their hands like elementary kids and make comments on my body rather than my mind.
My peers won’t take me seriously. The people at Xion Group could turn their noses at me the same way. My chest sinks when I imagine it.
When I glance away from the cardboard boxes littering my bedroom floor, Liliana still has a large wrinkle in her forehead.
I sigh. “I’m not upset you’re moving out. It was no trouble on my end to find a dorm. It worked out and you shouldn’t feel bad.”
“I just don’t want you thinking Grant comes before you, or that I’m, like…” She waves her hands around. “Replacing you or something.”
“Grant? Replace me?” Liliana overthinking my reaction to this isn’t anything new, but feeling replaced was the furthest thing from my mind. I scoff. “Please. I have five years of friendship over him, at least a thousand crying sessions, and he doesn’t have half the ass I do.”
“Rosie!”
When Lil laughs, I know I’ve lightened the weight off her shoulders. “It’s true! What you’re really stressing about is not being able to see this ass around the apartment anymore. Go ahead, you can admit it.”
Her eyes light up in amusement, and I let myself laugh with her. “You’re crazy.”
“And you’re not denying it.”
Joking like this is how I grit down the guilt of lying to her. I don’t lie to Liliana unless I know it’s for the best.
Lil would’ve shut down Grant’s offer in a second if she knew how much I scrambled to find a new place.
In the days while she was at her summer classes, I was sweating over my laptop keyboard searching for last-minute living arrangements.
The dorm having a singular open spot was a lucky twist of fate I won’t take for granted.
Lil is still laughing when she says, “I hope you don’t replace me. What if your new roommate is funnier than me and she becomes your new best friend?”
“Both impossible theories.”
Even if my new roommate sent me reeling with laughter every day and sat at the couch studying with me every night, it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t be my Lil.
“Plus,” I add on while grabbing the packing tape from her. “There’s a chance I could be dorming with a guy who is completely boring and doesn’t want to do late night face masks.”
“What?” I keep my eyes on the newly built box in front of me, placing the last of my textbooks at the bottom. “What do you mean it could be a guy?”
“That’s what the housing office told me. There’s a chance I could be living with a guy, if another grad student tries to apply for the dorms last minute.” I know what Liliana is going to say before she says it. I raise my voice to layer over hers and add in more humor to mask my own worry.
My jokes fly past her head. “There’s no way I’m letting you live with a guy!”
“I could totally live with a guy!”
I don’t want to. I assume the housing office wouldn’t room me with someone dangerous, so that’s not my concern.
It’s more that almost all the men in my engineering program haven’t been welcoming. They belittle me when they can and refuse to acknowledge me as an equal. It’s hard enough in class. I can’t imagine that being in my living space too.
“No. Absolutely not. That shouldn’t even be allowed.” Her yellow painted fingertips reach to pull tape off a sealed box, and I grab ahold of her wrist. “I’m going to call Grant and tell him I’ll live with him next year or something.”
She tries to wiggle out of my grip but comes up short. “No, you’re not. I’m an adult. I can live with a guy for the last year of school if I have to, Lil.”
“You’re going to live with a random guy you don’t even know?!”
I take a deep inhale. She’s making points I don’t want to hear, because I’m trying to be the confident and uncaring friend. I gulp down the fears I’m sure we share and plaster on a smile.
“It’s not like he’s going to be a dude they just pluck off the street.”
“It very well could be.” I let her hands go, and she crosses her arms.
“Brookstone has one of the best graduate science programs on the east coast. High-level shit.” When her posture doesn’t deflate, I roll my eyes for emphasis. “You think they just let anyone into this program?”
“I doubt they’re doing background checks on their students.”
I turn my back to her so I can knock my head against the white plaster wall. People who have incriminating backgrounds aren’t fighting to get into a grad program as competitive and expensive as Brookstone’s.
My words come out in a mumble with my chest pressed against the wall. “It is fine. It will be fine. I might not even get a roommate.”
I knew this would happen. I purposefully waited to tell her until the very last moment, when Liliana’s possessions are sitting in Grant’s place and my deposit has already been sent to the university.
She can’t convince me to back out. I can’t convince myself to either.
“I’m scared they’ll encroach on your living space.”
I sigh. She’s teetering around her words, but I know what she’s trying to say.
But my confident mask is strong. It’s been facing wear and tear through the last few months of my engineering program, but I cling to it.
Hide the unsure feeling in my stomach and face things head-on with the strength I muster.
Having my best friend give up something she’s finally doing for herself isn’t an option.
“We don’t know that they will. And hey! Who knows? Maybe living with a guy would be good for me.” Liliana’s face scrunches—the same way it does when she goes to scold me for my choices in men. “No! Not like that! I mean, like, maybe it’ll be good to make a friend in the program.”
That relieves a bit of the anxiety in my chest. Outside of my cohort, there are other girls in my program, but none who I’ve become particularly close to. Maybe if I had a friend in the program, then getting through this degree would be easier.
Maybe other peers would afford me some respect, too.
Lil sighs again. “I just don’t feel comfortable with you living with a strange guy.”
“And I don’t feel comfortable with you sacrificing what would make you happy. Like living with your boyfriend.” I can see the shift behind her eyes. The nail I’ve hit.
For as long as I’ve known her, Liliana has sacrificed her happiness for others. Only recently has she started to try doing things for herself.
After hearing my words, her demeanor changes. From defensive to shoulders slumping and head drooping, and I can tell it’s clicked.
Her lips purse, eyes closing tightly. “If you do end up living with a guy, and you feel uncomfortable, even for a second-”
“I’ll lay down the fucking law and tell him who’s boss.”
Her eyes snap open, stare pointed, but there’s humor behind it.
“I was going to say, you need to let the university know immediately. And tell me, too.”
“Or I could release live scorpions in his bed while he’s sleeping.
“Oh, my gosh, Rosie.” She throws her hands up, turning back to the box she was trying to unpack before. Instead of reaching for the tape ends, she picks up the cardboard and places it with the others on the floor. “What is with you and insects today?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” With a layer of textbooks lining the bottom of my box, I start grabbing the belts, hats, and other accessories from my closet that can’t be so easily crushed. This back and forth is what I’m used to with her.
“First bees, now scorpions?”
The sound of ripping tape behind my back is enough of a sign that Liliana isn’t going to push the roommate topic any longer. She knows I’m just as serious about her happy ending as she is.
Giggling, I ask over my shoulder, “Is it ticking you off?”
“Okay.” Empty cardboard hits the floor with a soft thud. “Too many bug puns.”
“Wasp the problem?”
“You’re being ridiculous and if you keep it up, I will literally walk out right now and you can finish this yourself.”
“Don’t antagonize me.”
“Goodbye, Rosie.”
She makes a beeline for the door. Although Liliana criticizes my horrible bug puns over her shoulder, she does eventually crack a smile before heading back into my barren bedroom to help finish packing.