Page 3 of Roses & Ruin

“I’m Bianca, by the way. Just got in last night.”

“Rose,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed. “Thanks so much for the help.”

“Cutting it kind of close to orientation, aren’t you?”

“My flight was delayed.” I try and shake the rainwater from my braid. “California airports can be a mess.”

“Lucky!” Bianca’s eyes light up. “If I were from California, I’d never leave.” Bianca knocks blithely on the small counter of a tiny office. “We’ve got a live one, Ms. Baker.”

The startled woman at the desk jerks up from watching her phone.

“Hi.” I tuck a dripping lock of my brown hair behind my ear. “I’m Rose Shields. Um, a freshman?” Don’t end statements with a question mark, Rose.

“Welcome, Rose!” Ms. Baker adjusts her glasses and peers at her computer screen.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Bianca gives me a grin. “Later.”

I’m so busy trying to wipe up the puddles I’m leaving on the tile with my feet, I forget to respond.

“Alright, Miss Rose.” Ms. Baker leans forward and hands me a few maps and a thin housing information packet. I gather them haphazardly in my arms, accidentally knocking over one of the suitcases. Ms. Baker points down the hall. “Common area is that way. Cafeteria, you take a left and then a right at the water fountain. Breakfast is six thirty to nine, except on Saturdays and Sundays, when it’s seven to ten thirty, unless it’s a holiday, when it’s eight to eleven.”

“Eight to…and was it a left at the…?” She hands me a set of keys, which I nearly drop.

“The big one’s for the front door. Every night at ten, that gets locked. The smaller one’s for your room, 303, my dear, just up those steps.”

“Oh.” I feel like an owl, swiveling my head and blinking. “Um, is the elevator—”

“No elevator, dear.” She settles back in her seat and pulls up Netflix on her phone. “These buildings are quite old.”

“Oh yeah, sure. Old is…nice.” I glance down at my arms, where the map labeled Coupland Hall is already soaked through from my sopping hair. I look down the hall where Ms. Baker had pointed and see the beginning of a wide staircase.

It takes a couple of trips to get everything up the three flights of steps. But even though I’m a panting, sweaty mess, I’m feeling an odd, tiny spark of…hope? There’s something about this building—the sweet smell of ancient oak planks, the cream-colored wainscoting and trim, the preserved echo of things made by hand centuries ago—that stirs something inside me.

Eager to see the space I’ll share with Remy, I unlock the door labeled 303 and shoulder it open. The room is small, barely big enough for all the furniture stuffed in here. But the floors are hardwood, the ceiling is vaulted with exposed wooden rafters, and there’s an ancient-looking chesterfield leather sofa pushed under a huge round window. It doesn’t feel cramped; it feels cozy. Specifically, it feels like the cozy Victorian attic bedroom of my dreams. There’s a pair of beds, wardrobes, bookshelves, and desks on either side of a flimsy partition that splits the room.

The view from the window is beautiful. I draw closer to the large glass circle and gaze through the veil of rain at the tops of trees that are already thinking about changing color. Beyond the stone spires and pointed arches of the other buildings on campus, I see a cemetery. There’s a marble sculpture of an angel sitting on top of a mausoleum-looking building: head bent, wings spread, a pale guardian always keeping watch.

Just like the one who saved you last year. The one who they say doesn’t—

No. I shake my head hard, running my hand across the leathery ridges of the sofa’s back. I won’t let the heartbreak and horror of this past year ruin my redo. Especially when there’s so much to give me hope.

“Wow, this is a joke, right?”

I blink out of my reverie and turn around to see an aggressively flawless girl with stunning makeup and long, glossy hair. She blinks in horror at the exposed beams, at the scuffed sofa, and then at me. My heart sinks to my stomach.

“I’m supposed to be getting a single.” Remy lifts a perfect brow. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, hi! I’m Rose Shields.” I’m proud I don’t make it sound like a question. “Are you…Is your name…You must be…Remy?” Please don’t let this be Remy.

“Yeah.” She frowns. My heart plummets through my feet to the ground floor, landing somewhere near Ms. Baker.

“Oh, cool. So we’re roommates.” I smooth my hair back, feeling that it’s drying frizzy.

“For now.” Remy flings words from her tongue like each one tastes terrible. “I’m texting my dad. He knows the dean.”

I shift on my feet. “I’m not sure they do single rooms for first-years? Definitely not in Coupland…”

But Remy’s already put in her AirPods. She heaves one of her suitcases onto the bed I’d been eyeing and whips out her phone to punch angrily at the screen. She slams her AirPod case onto her desk. It’s encrusted in tiny taffy-pink jewels, and in the center, spelled out in bedazzled glory, are the letters RL. They’re the fanciest things I’ve ever seen. My headphones still have an auxiliary jack. I feel a ludicrous urge to make sure Remy never sees me using them.