I glanced around, confused. Clearly, Roberta was on her side. Her bed was on her side, and she had a footlocker on her side. But it was cluttered. Like really cluttered. Like she had brought far too much stuff for the size room she was assigned kind of cluttered. It was giving me flashbacks to home and the things that gave me hives.

“Aren’t we in a shared dorm room?” I held my tank tops out like they had the answers she needed.

She snatched them out of my hands. I looked at my now empty hands and tucked them under my armpits.

“Oh, you’re funny now? Now you’re the funniest girl? You know, when you were moving in, I thought to myself, maybe she’s sweet. She has a stuffed animal.” She pointed my tank tops at the teddy bear on my bed. “But ever since I’ve met you, I’ve got a bad feeling.” She shifted her shoulders around like she was low-key practicing a TikTok dance.

“We met like an hour ago.” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. Okay, an hour and thirty-four minutes, but still.

“Yeah. Exactly.” Roberta took my tank tops and crammed them in her closet. I was surprised it didn’t burst from the added material.

Oh no. Roberta was an angry person. I was living with someone that didn’t want me there at all. I had to reach out an olive branch. “Uh, if you need to put some of your stuff in the closet…”

I was careful not to call it mine.

Roberta’s eyes got wide. “Yeah. Ya think?”

And that's how I wound up rolling all my dresses into my one suitcase and jamming it under my bed. Somehow, Roberta filled up two closets to the brim with her bullshit. And she was still mad.

That was four weeks ago. Four horrible weeks ago. I found out from our suitemates that Roberta had lived in our dorm room by herself for a full year. She was technically a sophomore.

Oh, and my suitemates? They steered clear of me. I was a marked woman. Roberta would make their lives hell if she caught them talking to me. That information was whispered to me when I was in the shower, so I didn’t get to know who had bent a little in the kindness-to-Taylor direction.

I was miserable. Even Teddi and Peaches, my two incredible friends, were worried. They were busy, though. Peaches was in school in Michigan, hoping to become a veterinarian. Teddi was in school as well, staying with friends. She hadn’t declared a major yet, but she was so driven I was sure it would happen soon.

I heard Roberta fart. A naked fart, with her whole ass out of her comforter. Then, there was a knock on our door.

I rolled over and Roberta stuck her tongue out at me, then spoke up, “Come in, babe.”