Chapter 12
ROOMMATE CONFIDENTIAL
Andie
When I unlock the dorm room door, it opens onto an obstacle course: cardboard boxes, half-full, half-open, stacked in disorderly towers against every available surface.
My favorite mug—cracked at the rim, no handle—sits like a crown atop one of them, already sealed with packing tape.
The window blinds are drawn at a lopsided slant, slicing sunlight into alternating bands of gold and dark.
The air smells like box glue, dust, and a hint of vanilla body mist.
Simone is on her knees, sorting through the lower reaches of the closet with a kind of reverent focus.
She wears a shapeless Century College sweatshirt and leggings that are slick with lint, her hair up in a pencil-stabbed knot.
She looks so ordinary that, for a second, I don’t recognize her as the same woman who wore plum lipstick and flawless curls to our dorm’s holiday shindig.
She doesn’t see me at first. I stand just inside the door, backpack dangling, trying to remember how to be normal after a night and morning like that.
I see her folding something—no, not just folding: arranging, smoothing the sleeves of a cream-colored sweater with unusual care, as if it’s evidence in a trial.
When she glances up and sees me, her face lights for a second, then shadows over as if she remembered not to. She tugs the sweater over her knees, fusses with it.
“You’re back early,” she says, aiming for nonchalance but missing by a mile.
I slip past the boxes and toss my bag onto my stripped bed. “Not really. Thought I’d get the laundry done before the vultures descend.”
She nods, lips pressed tight, then looks down at the sweater again.
She’s picking at a loose thread, hands fidgety.
I stand there for a second, waiting for her to say what she really wants to say, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she starts packing the sweater into a battered Kmart suitcase, then changes her mind and pulls it back out.
“Are you okay?” I ask, because someone has to.
She freezes, arms wrapped around the sweater, then says—very quietly, “Liam asked me to move in. Not, like, tomorrow. But soon. He keeps saying his place is too quiet and I’d make it a home.” She laughs, a short, embarrassed sound. “I haven’t said yes. I just—I don’t know. It’s weird, right?”
I sit on my own mattress, which is bare except for a fitted sheet and one lumpy pillow. I cross my arms. “Is it what you want?”
Her eyes flick to me. “I think so? It’s just—he makes me feel…” She searches for a word. “He makes me feel seen. Like I’m not the extra in someone else’s story.” She flushes, chin tucking. “It’s dumb.”
I shake my head. “It’s not dumb.”
She gives me a tiny, grateful smile, then goes back to packing, this time with less conviction. Her hands are clumsy, almost shaking.
She says, without looking up, “Did you stay at a friend’s last night?”
For a second, I have to replay the question in my head.
I remember Thomas’s kitchen: the coolness of the floor under my feet, the eggs and sausage and black coffee, the way he called me a gift, the way his hand traced my thigh while we watched the city.
I remember the soreness between my legs, the way the sheets stuck to my skin, the mark of his teeth on my collarbone.
I remember all of it at once, a supercut of everything that happened and every way it changed me.
My face must do something, because Simone stops moving.
“Oh my god,” she says, voice low. “Andie. Did you—?”
I snap to. “What?”
She abandons the sweater, crosses her arms over her chest, and narrows her eyes in a way I’ve only seen when she’s interrogating an underclassman who lied about cleaning the fridge.
“Don’t what me. You’re blushing like a first-year at a kegger. What happened last night? It was a guy, wasn’t it?”
I try to play dumb, but my body betrays me. My knees press together; my toes curl against the carpet. “Nothing. I mean—not nothing. I just—stayed at someone’s place, and yes, he’s male. That’s all.”
She nods, a big smile on her face. “So. Spill.”
I shake my head, stare at my knees. “It’s not—he’s not…” I can’t even say the word “dating,” not when the whole thing still feels so new.
Simone waits, silent, like she has all afternoon. I know that trick; it’s what she does with the kids she tutors: never push, just leave the silence on the table until someone can’t stand it anymore.
I give in. “I—” My voice is so small I have to clear my throat. “I had sex.” The words hit the air like an accusation. “Last night. For the first time.”
Simone’s eyebrows go up, but she doesn’t make a sound. She sits on the box nearest me, knees spread, leaning forward.
“With a man?” she says, softer than before.
I nod, not trusting myself to talk.
She waits.
I try again. “He’s older,” I say, which is true. “Like two decades older, and he’s obviously not in school. Not really part of any of the dorms or classes, or anything.” I gesture at the mess of boxes, the empty walls. “It just happened.”
Simone’s face stays perfectly still, but her knuckles go white around the edges of the cardboard. “Okay, but do you like him?”
I let the question hang there, not sure how to answer.
I think about the way Thomas looked at me, really looked at me, the way his touch was both a command and a comfort.
I think about how the city looked from his windows, endless and blue and glittering, and how for a second, I thought: This is what it’s like to be chosen.
“I think so,” I say, and it feels like stepping out over open water. “I mean, it’s still early.”
Simone draws a breath, holds it. “Was it good?” she asks, and her voice is all curiosity, no judgment.
A laugh escapes me—nervous, bright, barely under control.
“It was amazing. And terrifying. And not what I thought it would be.” I drop my eyes, picking at a loose thread in the mattress.
“He was so gentle with me, despite his huge size. Like Sim, I didn’t think he would fit at first. Like no way, nuh uh. ”
She giggles.
“That’s what I thought the first time I saw Liam’s tool. It was also near panic, shaking my head, my pussy’s going to be destroyed. But it was good right? You enjoyed it?”
I smile, warmth rushing through me.
“It was amazing. He was so tender, and not just in bed. After, too. He made breakfast. He made it feel like I belonged there, even though we hardly know each other.” My voice catches, stupidly, and I hate how soft it sounds.
I can’t look at my roomie, so I stare out the window at the thin slice of sky. I don’t know how to say it without sounding like every other girl who’s ever mistaken sex for love, but there’s a gravity in the memory, a sense of having crossed some private, irreversible threshold.
“He treated me like I mattered,” I finish, and the words feel so tiny compared to the feeling in my chest.
Simone says nothing, just sits there, face still and open. I can see her thinking, gears turning behind her eyes. I wonder if she’s remembering her own first time, or if she’s trying to calibrate whether I need comfort or reality.
She finally says, “Does he know it was your first?”
I nod. “Yes, I told him.”
“Did you tell anyone else?” Her voice is wary. “I know you have that bet going on with the girls down the hall.”
I shake my head. “No. I haven’t told anyone but you. Not yet.”
Simone nods, as if she expected this. “Do you want to?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I haven’t even decided if I want to see him again,” I lie, trying to sound nonchalant.
She gives me a look that’s half-smile, half-pity. “You want to. I can tell.”
The truth of it stings, but also relieves me. “Yeah,” I say. “I do. I really like him.”
Simone sits there a while, then stands and comes over, perching on the edge of my mattress. She puts a hand on my shoulder, gentle, the way you might touch a cat that might bolt at any second.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone,” she says.
“Not even me. But—” She hesitates. “Don’t get caught up in hormones, okay?
I mean, it’s natural, but my first time, I thought I was going to get married to the guy.
The flood of endorphins was so strong that I couldn’t see straight for months. ”
“Oh no, it’s not like that,” I babble. “I’m totally fine.”
Simone smiles sympathetically.
“Good, I’m glad to hear that. And if you do see him again, make it because you want to. Not because you feel like you owe him, or anything like that. You don’t owe him anything.”
I nod, grateful. “I know. Thanks.”
She rocks forward a little, elbows on her knees, hands clasped like she’s thinking for a moment.
“Sim?” I ask. “What’s up?”
She takes a deep breath and smiles. “I may be speaking out of line, but I know what it’s like to fall for someone older.
” The words land soft, but not easy. “I adore Liam. He’s helped open the world to me, and made me see things I didn’t even know existed.
But you have to be careful, Andie. Men like that—they have experience.
They have money. They know what they want, and most of the time, it isn’t forever.
They can walk away whenever they want and not lose a thing.
” She lifts her eyes, searching my face.
“Girls like us? We’re the ones who pay.”
I absorb this. My jaw locks. I don’t want to look away, but I do, instead staring at the exposed metal springs under my mattress, each one shadowed like a threat.
Simone is gentle, but relentless. “Does he know about the bet?”
I freeze. My fingers tangle together, nails digging hard enough to leave marks. “No,” I say, and my voice is almost nothing. “I didn’t tell him.”
She tilts her head, waiting.
My heart is hammering in my throat. “I mean, I thought about telling him. Okay, not really, but there’s something else,” I say, and then I make myself say it: “I recorded it. Last night.” I watch the truth leave my mouth and hang there, quivering in the air between us.
“I set my phone up. I haven’t shown it to anyone. But I did record it.”
Simone goes perfectly still. It’s not fear, or even surprise. It’s disappointment—a sharp, clean line that draws her features down.
“You recorded him being intimate with you without asking?”
I nod. “I know it’s wrong. I know.” I look at my hands. “I just—I didn’t want to lose this bet thing. I wanted it to count. But after, I couldn’t even bring myself to watch it. It just sits there. Like a grenade.”
The silence is so heavy I almost can’t breathe. On the other side of the wall, someone’s playing music—slow and syrupy, a sad guitar and some girl’s voice drifting in and out.
Simone finally says, “Don’t show it to anyone.
Not even to me.” Her tone is firm, almost maternal.
“Delete it if you can. Please. If you have to keep it, keep it for yourself and password protect it. But don’t ever let him find out.
” She runs a hand through her hair, the bun coming loose. “That’s not who you want to be, Andie.”
I nod, mouth tight. “I know.”
She sighs, stands, and starts fussing with the boxes again. “I never liked that bet, you know. It was freshman-level stupidity. We’re not that desperate, and we’re definitely not that dumb.”
I almost laugh, but it comes out as a wet, broken sound. “Yeah.”
She glances over at me, face softening. “You’re not a bad person, Andie. You just got caught up in something with those girls you hang out with.”
“You’re friends with them too!”
She nods, a frown on her pretty face.
“Yes, but I’ve grown apart from them in the last year or so. I mean, I met Liam and everything changed. The stuff they’re interested in seems so childish now. I don’t know,” she says. “I love Kayleigh, Mary Kate and Stella, but we’re just on different planets.”
I nod.
“Totally get it. You’re different, Sim, since dating Professor Thomas, and I hope things work out for you.”
A shadow crosses her face for a moment as her hand slips over her lower belly.
“I think it will. I know it will,” she says in a more determined voice.
With that, I smile before lying back on my mattress and staring at the ceiling, thinking about Thomas Moreland and our intimate video. What should I do? God, I have no idea.
Simone goes back to her packing, but she keeps talking, her voice gentle and low. “I think you really like him,” she says. “Maybe even love him, a little.”
I close my eyes, let the word love fizz around my ribcage. “No way,” I say. “It’s way too early.”
She smiles, just a little. “That’s what I thought with Liam too, but within months we were serious. I just hope your new guy deserves it.”
For a long time, neither of us speaks. The music next door gets louder, then stops abruptly, replaced by the muffled thump of a headboard against a wall.
The light outside shifts, going blue and hard as the sun slips behind the campus library.
Simone tapes another box shut, the sound slicing the quiet.
My phone buzzes on the mattress. I reach for it and see the group chat lighting up: “Update time, ladies. Coffee tomorrow? Who’s got news on the bet?” Stella’s name at the top, followed by Kayleigh and Mary Kate. The notification lingers, waiting.
I don’t respond. I just set the phone face-down and stare at the slanted bands of sunlight on the wall.
Oh god, what would Stella do if she knew I had video of me and her dad banging?
If she watched his dick withdraw from my just-fucked pussy, slick with his sperm and my first blood? Oh god, she’d die.
Simone watches me. She doesn’t say anything, but her hand drifts to the sweater she packed earlier, fingers brushing the soft wool over and over, like she’s comforting herself.
I feel the warning settle inside me: a lodestone, a compass, a promise. I don’t know what I’ll do with it yet, but I know I’ll never forget it.
My hands go still in my lap. I close my eyes and let the silence hold me.
For now, it’s enough.