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“That one is my room.” She steps up beside me, glossing her eyes over the tornado-level mess of her bedroom. “Do you like van Gogh?”
“Hmm?”
“Van Gogh? He’s an artist. He—those are mostly his.” She fiddles with the hem of her skirt. “There’s some Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, but it’s mostly van Gogh.”
I nod without really knowing what she’s talking about, but it seems to please her. She walks with me to the other bedroom, which is much larger than any bedroom I’ve ever had before. It’s empty, for the most part, but there is a full-size bed and dresser already there.
“We can move the furniture out. My dad bought it from the people that lived here, and they used to rent it. But I think—”
“It’s fine.” I cross my arms, staring a little longingly at the space. “How much does it—”
“How much can you pay?”
My brow furrows.
“However much you can, I’ll take.” Her words border on desperation, and I step back.
“Why do you need a roommate so bad?” I ask. “I mean, this place is amazing, I’m sure you have tons of—”
“My dad said I have to find someone to live with me by the end of the week or I can’t stay here. And . . . I really don’t want to move back in with him.” Lily’s words are a little too loud, but she doesn’t seem to realize it. “And you’re the first, like . . . nice person to show up . . . and the first girl.” I nearly huff a laugh at her calling me nice but manage to smother it. Her expression sours, but she puffs her chest up. “I don’t want to live with a boy, but I will if I have to.”
Yeah, not gonna happen.
“Okay. Tentatively, I say yes.”
“Really?” Her navy eyes brighten as her smile goes deliriously wide. She reaches out and takes my hand in hers. “When can you move in?”
I let out a laugh and shake my head, reluctantly already starting to like my new weird little roommate. Maybe this is exactly the kind of change I need.
• • •
“I told you, you didn’t have to come with me,” I mutter, slumping in the chair and feeling more like an angsty teenager than the twenty-one-year-old college senior I am.
“What was that?” Alessia asks, tapping her fingers against her chin. “Didn’t hear you.”
Alessia Baudelaire is otherworldly beautiful. Dressed like she’s on a Parisian weekend getaway, smoky eye and blood red lips, I can’t help but think she reminds me a little bit of Sadie Brown. She’s got the build of a high fashion model, tall and leggy, with golden shimmery skin and dark brown eyes that are nearly black, even more intense with her near permanent scowl.
I might find her visually overdramatic now. But at eighteen, I’d found her intensity to be comforting, protective. She’d been my shield and sword that I trusted enough to hide behind.
And then I’d punished myself by shutting her out.
“I can do this myself. You don’t have to follow me around like you’re worried I’m going to off myself.”
“Hmm,” she mutters, still refusing to look at me. “I’ve blocked out the ability to hear bullshit actually, so—”
The door creaks open, the blond woman with kind eyes in the doorway watching as I stick my tongue out at Alessia. She smirks at me, murmuring “Very mature” under her breath as we both stand—her elegantly, me unfurling out of the chair like a clumsy house cat.
“Miss Blake?” The woman asks, eyes darting between the two of us. Alessia is in her late thirties, so no one would ever mistake her for my mother—which I’m grateful for. I don’t think I could stomach that faux pas. “I’m Dr. Sutton. Or Sam, whatever you prefer.”
“Yeah, hi. Nice to meet you,” I say as I’m awkwardly half-shoved toward her by Alessia.
“I’ll see you when you get out,” Alessia says, smirking before spinning on her elegant heels and darting off.
I follow Dr. Sutton into her office, trying desperately to remind my racing heart that this is therapy I’m walking into, not a federal prison.
It doesn’t work much.
• • •
