Stripping out of the sleep shirt and my underwear, I step into the shower and search for the controls, only there aren’t any. It takes me far longer than it should to figure out the water is controlled by a touch screen and once I make it work, the jets are like getting an hour-long massage in an instant.

I linger beneath the water for longer than I should, but the comforting heat combined with all my favorite products makes me want to indulge, even though I shouldn’t. Once I’m done, I wrap myself in the softest, fluffiest towel I’ve ever touched and step back into the bedroom.

Now that I’m fully awake I take a moment to look around. The walls are painted an off-white, except for the one behind the bed that’s covered in patterned wallpaper. The bed is massive and made of dark wood and there’re matching nightstands on either side. All of the soft furnishings are a mix of blues with the odd hint of gold dotted here and there. It’s beautiful and incredibly classy, like it was put together by a designer—which it probably was.

I search the floor for my backpack, hoping that my uniform isn’t too creased from where I folded it into my bag last night after I got changed at the diner. There’s a door next to the bathroom that I’m assuming leads to a closet, so I open it and find my backpack on the floor and my uniform hanging on the rod. There’s a second bag beside the first and I recognize it as mine.

Shock hits me and I stumble back from the force. My mom is here, she stayed here last night, she’s having coffee with Bastian’s parents downstairs right now. What the hell did he tell her to have her agree to all this? I’ve never mentioned him to her, we’re not friends, I’d never even spoken to him myself before yesterday. But he must have told her something that convinced her to believe him, or else she wouldn’t be here and she wouldn’t have allowed me to stay here either. I wonder if he’s told her the things he’s been saying to me? That I’m his, that we’re together, a real couple.

Rushing to get ready, I pull on fresh underwear from the bag Mom must have brought for me and quickly dress in my uniform. My hair is too long and too wet to leave loose, so I brush it quickly then twist it into two thick braids that sit flat to my head on either side, trailing down over my shoulders to the middle of my back.

I never usually wear makeup but right now I wish I did, because I could do with something to help give me a little armor against whatever I’m going to find when I go downstairs. I’ve never found myself in such a fucked-up position before, but as a general rule I always think honesty is the best policy. But how the hell would I even start to explain this? I doubt either his parents or my mom would appreciate me screaming that Bastian is infatuated with me and thinks this gives him some moronic claim on me. It sounds insane even to my own ears.