He slips out, and I just shake my head and turn my music back up. I know Matt was just buttering me up to buy my silence, but I can’t pretend I didn’t like being called “chill” and “a cool girl.” Back in Greentree, next to Sierra, no one would ever think of me as the cool one—not when she was dancing on tables at parties or kicking ass at beer pong or snagging every single guy (and occasional girl) in sight. Certainly not when I was working so hard to be the best girlfriend I could be by making Craig and his stupid friends snack platters while they played video games. Or when I was so committed to helping Claire with her art that I’d spend entire yawning afternoons modeling for portraits. Or all the times I put my own studying and hobbies on hold so I could help them with math (Craig), English papers (Claire), or bio (both).

God forbid I be anything but the perfect girlfriend, perfect best friend. But then, a boyfriend and a best friend were the two things I had in life that my sister didn’t, and it was impossible not to want to hold them close.

Of course, she took them anyway.

But here … there’s no Sierra. I don’t have to prove I’m “good enough” to earn my space in her shadow. And now I have something no other girl on campus has or will have: a room in an all-boys dorm. So maybe this isn’t ruining what’s supposed to be the perfect reset of my life.

Maybe it’s actually the perfect opportunity to do things differently.

How? I don’t know yet. But that’s okay. I’m a blank slate with nothing but time to figure it out.

Or not. Because everywhere I go for orientation events today, people seem to know who I am.

On the group tour, a couple of my new dormmates I recognize from orientation suggest with dancing eyebrows that we work out a shower schedule.

At the campus store, a guy I’ve never seen before suggests I see if they carry boxers so I can better fit in at Rumson.

Another pointedly lets me know that he’s heard I have my own private room, emphasis on private.

I don’t know how news got around so fast, or why all these people have to be so fucking creepy, but the entire morning is filled with pointing and whispering and strangers greeting me with variations on “Hey, aren’t you the Rumson Girl?”

That’s me: the Rumson Girl. Exactly what I’ve always dreamed.

“It’s Evie, actually,” I tell the guy who stops me in Beasley Dining Hall, a.k.a. the Beast, where I’m just trying to get some lunch fuel to get me through the rest of this day.