Chapter Five
Sky
T he blonde cherub of a girl who slept through my arrival last night is a whole different person now as she curls her lip at me from her bed. She’s decked out in three leather chokers, with black eyeliner smudged out around her eyes and two holes in each brow that are missing their piercings.
“Great, they’ve locked me up with Malibu Barbie herself,” she sneers with an English accent.
I roll my eyes at her and throw my bag on my bed. Great, they’ve locked me up with a bitch.
“Oooh, sassy aren’t you?” she tsks.
I don’t give her the satisfaction of a response and instead turn my back on her and rifle through my bag for a hair tie. I just schlepped my way back from the other side of campus, and the sweat on the back of my neck is my only concern right now.
“Well, out with it,” she continues, and her bed creaks behind me. “What’s your name? Where you from? Let’s get the pleasantries out of the way before I lay down the rules.”
Rules? I take a steadying breath and continue to ignore her. My day—No, my life has been absolute crap, and the last thing I need is this girl getting under my skin. Not today. I was late to practically all my classes because the map was useless. I would have been better off with a compass. And not a single teacher cut me any slack. It was my first day, and no matter how many apologies I spewed letting them know so, I still got the disappointing look that meant I was on their watch list.
My hopes of not drawing any attention from my father have gone out the window, and with them, any care I have to give. I’m so tired of everyone holding me to impossible standards, and the anger simmering just beneath the surface threatens to crack my demure exterior. I spin around on my roommate, finishing off my ponytail.
“I’m no happier than you to be here so, can you not?” I say, hoping that our combined displeasure can be an olive branch between us.
She’s picking the black paint chips from her nails and looking me up and down like I’m a disappointment. What is it with everyone around here judging me? Didn’t I get enough of that back home?
“No one is happy to be here, princess,” she quips when her eyes reach mine. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world and rules are the only way to keep civility.”
I can’t resist rolling my eyes again. This girl can’t possibly know what it’s like to live by the rules. I’m sure her parents never backhanded her for breaking any, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to embrace the style she’s taken on. I couldn’t wear any nail polish or I was called a whore. How’s that for civility?
“Well, here’s a rule for you …” I give her the same up and down look she gave me. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
I get a small thrill out of dishing out what she’s giving, even if the venom feels foreign on my tongue. I may have to put up with my father’s crap, the teacher’s crap, and back home, anyone’s crap who could ruin my reputation, but here, I don’t have to take it from this girl.
She juts her hip out. “Damn, don’t get your knickers in a bunch. You’re no fun, are you?”
“Apparently not.” I shrug and turn away to hide my smile at winning.
I spend the next ten minutes unpacking and making my bed. At least my mother was with it enough to go out and buy me what I would need while I was locked in my room. She picked out a lavender bed set from Lily & Lily with an eighteen-hundred thread count just for this pathetic twin bed, and despite her flaws, I kind of love her for it. Lavender is my favorite color, and she even got two fuzzy throw pillows that match.
She also packed my bag with a toiletry holder, filling it with Lush products. The thought is so meaningful that I sag. God, I wish I could see what she would be like without my father. I may fault her for not standing up to him, or standing up for me, but she’s not evil like he is. She’s just scared. And broken.
I sit down on the freshly made bed and stare at the floor, realizing that now she’s all alone with him. How much more can she take before she’s glassy-eyed and just a shell of a person?
My eyes well up knowing that the man she loves thinks the same way as the guy who— My stomach twists, and I have to gulp down the bile creeping up my throat.
“You didn’t let me tell you that rule number one is no vomiting.” My roommate pulls an earbud out of her ear and gives me a side-eye.
I breathe deeply through my nose, ignoring her and trying to get a hold of myself. Shut it down, Sky. Lock it up. Chain the door and barricade it. I don’t need this girl seeing how weak I actually am.
“Little homesick are we?” she taunts.
I brace my hands on my knees and look up at the ceiling, blinking and trying to suck the tears back into their sockets.
“Can you at least do that in the bathroom because if you vomit, so will I.”
I groan. “I’m not going to vomit. Will you just shush for a minute?”
I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive a year with her in this tiny and overly ornate room. I swear there is no fresh air in here. My throat is clogged up with not only my past, but hundreds of years of roommate tension that seem to be seeping from the walls.
How many girls of Lamb Hall before me had to grapple with worse? I need to get it together. I need to relax. I need…
“Do you have weed?” I ask.