THREE
U nfortunately, the university housing office is in West Hall, the building I just moved out of. With wind stinging my face, I trudge back there, cursing the storm. The whole campus looks deserted. It’s creepy with the blowing snow and wind whipping the tree branches around. It feels like the end of the world.
My heart is pounding when I get to West Hall. I go straight to the first-floor offices, still not really believing that this is happening. I mean, what are the chances? Not only is the only empty room in the entire university not really empty after all, but it’s Jay’s room. Jay Hoque.
I didn’t know Jay Hoque, but I’d seen him around campus a lot before he disappeared. In the student center, in dining halls, even at campus events. I’m pretty sure I even crashed into him in the library once. Actually, before he disappeared, it felt like I saw Jay everywhere , and when I mentioned that to Mia, she claimed I was obsessed with him or something. She even said it was just like me to lust after an unattainable guy, which was ridiculous. I wasn’t lusting after him; it was just hard not to notice Jay.
I’m sorry for what happened to him and all, but the dude exuded bad-boy vibes. If this were a teen movie, he’d be either the stoner or the mysterious guy no one knows who somehow ends up with the head cheerleader. He’d be Bender if this were The Breakfast Club . Patrick in 10 Things I Hate About You . Or Logan, if this were the best TV show ever, Veronica Mars .
And now I’ve seen the guy’s underwear. I have no idea how I’ll be able to face him on campus.
The guy who assigned me to East House is still in the housing office. I march up to his desk and put my hands on my hips, hoping a power stance will give me some confidence. “You gave me a room that has someone living in it.”
The guy looks up from his computer and frowns at me like he has no idea who I am.
I exhale. “Aleeza Kassam. I was here this morning. You gave me a room in East House, but there’s a guy’s stuff in it. It’s against school policy to room me with a male student, isn’t it?”
The housing guy shakes his head. “No, that room is empty.” He does something on his computer, not even looking at me. “The previous resident isn’t coming back.”
“You should tell him that. He told me on ResConnect not to get too comfortable because he’s not supposed to have a roommate.”
The housing guy suddenly freezes. His face goes a little whiter than it already was. “What did you say?”
“He messaged me in ResConnect,” I say. “The residence app?” Considering this guy works at campus housing, he should know about ResConnect, shouldn’t he?
The guy still looks incredibly confused. “We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”
“Yeah, earlier today when you assigned me the room. But you told me it was empty.”
“No, I mean about the room being taken.”
I raise a brow. “It’s Jay Hoque’s room. The guy in second year who went missing? He just messaged me on ResConnect.”
The housing guy shakes his head. “He’s not returning to the school. This morning the registrar informed us that he’s been unenrolled. That’s why the room was available today. Maybe ResConnect hasn’t updated your room assignment, and it was your former roommate messaging you. Let me check the system.”
I wait for him to do his thing, but I know he’s wrong. It wasn’t Mia. The message clearly said it was from someone named Jay. After a few seconds, he looks up at me. “The system’s fine. You are the only assigned resident to East House 225. Could’ve been a glitch—a leftover message from when he was in the room.”
I pull out my phone and open the app. “I’ll show you.” When the chat opens, it’s empty. No messages at all. Definitely not one from Jay Hoque. I frown. “I swear, the message was here.”
“You’re a first-year student, right?” the housing guy asks.
I nod.
“Moving away from home can be a challenging transition, and—”
“What does that have to do with the message on ResConnect?”
“You’ve had some recent interpersonal struggles too. Plus, talk of the missing student has affected many on campus.”
I raise a brow, incredulous. “You think I’m making this up?”
His expression doesn’t change. “The university has resources you can take advantage of. Individual counseling, plus support groups. I urge you to connect with the student life—”
“I’m not delusional. I swear there was a message from Jay here.”
The guy shakes his head and points to his screen. “Jay Hoque hasn’t been seen in months. I apologize for his things being left in the room. His mother hasn’t returned calls to pick it up. But it’s not possible that he messaged you in the app. Even if he’s back, no one else is assigned to room 225 in the system, so no one can message you on ResConnect. The room-chat function only allows people assigned to the same room to communicate.” He turns his monitor so I can see the room 225 information on his screen. “See? You’re the only one in the room. It’s a single room. Eliza Kassam.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s pronounced A- lee -za. Just like it’s spelled.” He doesn’t say anything to that. “If it’s a single room,” I ask, “why are there two beds and two dressers?”
He turns his screen back to face him. “It used to be a double, but a few rooms in East House were redesignated as singles in September due to their size. If you want, I can have operations remove the extra furniture. Most students opt to keep it for storage.”
This is ridiculous. I saw that message. But the housing guy is right about one thing ... I am stressed. The whole Mia situation could be messing me up more than I realize.
“What do I do with his things?” I ask. “Can’t someone come get it?”
He shrugs. “I’ll put in a call, but campus security is a little short-staffed right now. Maybe you can box up his personal effects until we reach the next of kin?”
Personal effects. Next of kin. Just like Mia, the school is assuming the guy is dead. His poor mother.
“This can’t be the only empty room in the whole school, can it? I don’t mind a roommate. As long as it’s a ... you know. Girl.”
He looks at his computer screen, shaking his head. “You were lucky to get that one.”
I’ve missed all my classes today, thanks to this mess. And now I’m hungry. East House doesn’t have its own dining hall since it’s so small, so I go to the food hall in City Tower next door. The selection there is disappointing. Sigh. That’s another thing I gave up—West Hall has the best food in the school. I grab a boring-looking grain bowl to go.
When I finally get back to East House, I check my new mailbox to find it empty, then climb the stairs to the third floor. Gracie Song is in the hallway, talking to another girl. Maybe this is my chance to fix things with her? I’ll be living next to Gracie until the end of the term, and awkwardly sneaking past her whenever I see her would be annoying.
“Hi, Gracie! Thanks again for helping me with my box,” I say. “Looks like we’ll be neighbors!”
She blinks at me. The person she’s talking to, a white girl with long brown hair in a ponytail and an expensive winter coat, looks at me with a strange expression. She turns back to Gracie. “Thanks for letting me hide out in your place.”
She kisses Gracie briefly on the lips and then walks toward the stairs. As she passes me, she nods toward my door. “What kind of voodoo did you do to get his room? I think it’s so tacky. The room is probably cursed—you might want to burn some sage or something.” The girl disappears down the stairs.
I look back at Gracie, but she doesn’t seem to want to explain what her girlfriend meant. “She seems nice!” I say. I’m probably laying it on too thick.
“Are you really moving into that room?” Gracie asks. She looks irritated.
Okay. Fine. We’ll skip the small talk and get right to it. I nod. “It’s the only free room in the school. I had to leave my last residence. Roommate issues.”
“Do you know whose room it is?”
I nod. “Yeah, the missing guy, Jay. I only discovered that after I moved in. Were ... are you friends with him?”
Gracie crosses her arms. “No.”
Now that she’s taken off all her winter gear, I see that Gracie is wearing a very cute red-and-yellow floral dress with a yellow cardigan and red lipstick. Her wavy black hair reaches just past her shoulders, and her bangs fall into her eyes. Gracie is East Asian, with a round face and huge smile. She’s not smiling now, though.
“I think you’re in my program,” I say. “Journalism, first year. I’m Aleeza Kassam.”
Gracie’s expression softens a tiny bit. “I thought you looked familiar.”
I smile. I want to ask her why she was so spooked when she found out I was moving into Jay’s room, or why her girlfriend (or hookup?) said I should burn sage, but I’m afraid that will just annoy her again.
“You really didn’t know this was Jay’s room?” she asks.
“No, why?”
She gives me a look that tells me she doesn’t believe me, then uses the key around her neck to open her door. “Welcome to East House,” she says before she shuts it behind her.
I exhale and unlock my door. It will take some work, but I’m determined to make Gracie my friend this term. This is supposed to be my fresh start. New residence, new Aleeza.
I already know that Mia wouldn’t like Gracie. She’d call her quirky with that dress-and-glasses combo. She’d say that no one wears red lipstick just for class, and Gracie is trying too hard. But Mia’s judgments won’t affect who I associate with anymore.
I open the blinds. The room isn’t really that bad. With the setting sun shining into it, it’s kind of nice. Small, though. I decide to keep the extra furniture. The extra bed can be like a couch/daybed, and I can definitely use the extra dresser.
After eating dinner while watching an episode of Only Murders in the Building on my laptop, I go back to my duffel and continue to unpack. I put away my school supplies, then stack my books on the extra desk. Finally, I take my now-empty box and start packing Jay Hoque’s stuff, trying not to think too much about him while I’m doing it.
This whole situation is so weird. That ResConnect message, Gracie’s strange reaction to me being in Jay’s room. Even Gracie’s girlfriend’s comment that I did voodoo to get it.
Should I burn sage? I don’t usually put any stock in that woo-woo mystical stuff. Tarot, crystals, and burning sage were all the rage in Alderville last year, but I didn’t get involved. Those things are all based on pagan traditions or Christianity. My family is Muslim, and even though we don’t really practice much, I don’t want to screw up any possible afterlife by dipping my toes into something I shouldn’t.
What happened to Jay is such a compelling mystery, though. A few weeks ago, I did a tiny bit of research on his disappearance, thinking I’d do an episode on his case. What I remember is that he apparently disappeared from his own room. This room. His ID card logged him coming into the building one night—and then never leaving it. Apparently, an eyewitness saw him in the mailroom on the ground floor. When campus police checked on him the next day, after his mother had said he wasn’t returning her calls, he wasn’t here.
There was no trace of him. He’d just vanished . And no one could figure out how, or why. It’s not possible to leave through the room windows—they don’t open more than a few inches. The front-door camera showed no sign of him leaving the building.
I suddenly remember that newspaper article I wrapped my octopus mug in. I grab it from the recycling bin.
Just under the headline— Jay Hoque’s Final Days —is a picture of him. The caption says it was taken in November, days before his disappearance. I study it, even though I remember exactly what he looked like. Jay had wavy hair in the deepest black imaginable, pale-brown eyes with dark, curly lashes, and a square jaw on a narrow face. I have no idea what his ethnic background was, but he had an olive skin tone—almost faintly Mediterranean, or maybe Middle Eastern. With Jay, it was his mannerisms, his vibe , that made him as striking as his looks. He was a combination of aloof, rebellious, and way too cool for this place. And honestly? He was kind of hot. He wasn’t particularly tall but had broad shoulders and a way of moving that said he didn’t care if someone was in his way.
I look closer at the picture. I have seen Jay smile before—when I used to see him around campus. I remember thinking his smile looked too big for his face. But that wide smile is not in this picture. In fact, he’s almost scowling. Looking straight at the camera with those haunting pale eyes. Did he know what was going to happen to him?
I skim the article. There isn’t any new information in it. Mostly it goes over his last few days on campus, which were pretty normal. The writer interviewed professors in his engineering program and Emma Coffey, his ex-girlfriend (or, from what it sounds like, one of his many ex-girlfriends). Looking at her picture on the second page, I’m not sure I’ve seen her before. But then again, I am not sure I’d remember her if I had. There is nothing that stands out about her. She looks like any other white Canadian university student with long, honey-colored hair. Emma claims that she and Jay were together for a few months, and she saw him on campus the day before he went missing. She said he probably took off because he was caught dating too many girls at the same time.
I chuckle to myself. If I were investigating this case, Emma is where I would start—a woman scorned. I’ve seen enough crime shows to know that either love or money is the motive for most crimes. I also doubt that Jay Hoque, with his devil-may-care attitude, would run away because a girl discovered he was unfaithful. He was a known player, so why would he care?
I shake my head as I toss the paper back into the recycling bin. There’s no reason to obsess over the guy because I’m in his old room. I have a tendency to overthink things that don’t matter to me, which is actually a great trait for a journalist. But I don’t want to get too fixated on Jay Hoque. The whole situation is weirding me out, and I’d like to be able to sleep in his room. My room.
After unpacking everything, I head to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. It sucks I don’t have my own bathroom anymore. No one acknowledges me there, or in the hallway. I may as well be invisible.
Maybe moving was a mistake. At least I knew people in West Hall. I could have lived with Mia and not talked to her. Or maybe we could have worked it out. I hate this feeling of being all alone. I’ve been feeling it a lot since Mia met Lance. Even for Christmas—we both went home to Alderville, but Mia came back to Toronto early to be with Lance and his friends, and I spent New Year’s Eve with my parents.
But I’m not going to fall into despair. This is my chance to start fresh ... make new friends. Focus on me for a change.
When I get back to my room, my phone buzzes with a notification. It’s late—past eleven o’clock. I leave my bathroom caddy on my desk and unlock my phone.
It’s ResConnect. Jay Hoque is messaging me again.
Heart racing, I sit on my bed to read his message.
Jay: Why are you still here? Kegan says no one else is assigned to this room, but I just got home and you’re on my ResConnect again.
Jay: If this is a prank, it’s not working. Stop.
I stare at the message. What. The hell. Is going on?
Why is Jay Hoque messaging me? Why is he existing at all? And who the hell is Kegan?
I have to agree with Jay, though, or whoever it is. This is a terrible prank. And in very bad taste, too, because the person the prankster is impersonating is literally a missing person. Could it be Mia? Even she couldn’t be this heartless. Maybe Lance? Or his sister, Taylor? I wouldn’t put it past them.
Or maybe lines are crossed in the app, and even though the message says it’s from Jay Hoque, it’s actually someone else?
Aleeza: Who are you?
Jay: I’m the person who was fucking promised no one would be moving into this room. It’s supposed to be a single now.
Aleeza: No, I mean what’s your name? What room? I think ResConnect is glitching.
Jay: East House room 225. I’m Jay Hoque. It says your name is Aleeza. Why are you here?
I inhale sharply when I read the name Jay Hoque. This isn’t crossed wires. Clearly, it’s a prank.
Aleeza: Yes, I’m Aleeza Kassam. First Year Journalism. I had to leave my other room because of a bad roommate, and this was the only empty room in the school.
Jay: Well, it’s not fucking empty. I’m right here. I was at the office today and Kegan told me no one else is assigned to this room.
Aleeza: Who’s Kegan?
Jay: Kegan works at campus housing! He told me I have no roommate and yet I come back and you’re listed as assigned to Room 225.
My breath hitches. What is going on? Is Kegan the guy I talked to in campus housing today? The one who had déjà vu when I told him that Jay had shown up on my ResConnect?
Also ... where did Jay say he is right now?
Aleeza: Where are you? Like at this moment?
Jay: I already said I’m in room 225. You’re going to have to stay in your bad roommate situation because you can’t come here.
Aleeza: Like are you inside the room right now? East House, third floor, room 225?
Jay: You sure you’re a journalism student? Reading comprehension doesn’t seem to be your strong suit. Yes, I’m here right now, sitting on my bed under the window.
I stare straight in front of me at the bed under the window, which has nothing on it but Tentacle Ted. Jay Hoque is most definitely not there. His underwear is in a box in my closet, but not the guy himself.
Someone is either playing a very cruel joke or I’m officially losing my mind because of loneliness.
Or, hell, maybe Jay is dead, and I’m talking to a ghost.
I turn off my phone. Clearly, I need to get some sleep. Hopefully, this whole hallucination will go away in the morning. I do not have the bandwidth for this.