I scramble out of bed, sheets clinging on for half a second too long, glued by sweat. Shirt. Shorts. Thank God all the podcast stuff is shut away. Outside, there’s a general commotion and clamour: everyone must be arriving now, laughter and clattering and doors opening and shutting. Morning sunshine spills across the floor. I swear I had a T-shirt on when I went to bed; the heat must have made me remove it in my sleep. I’m compelled to check my hair for a yet unknown reason but there’s no mirror in here so finally I just loudly and too angrily say, ‘OK,’ and an eye peeks through the wedge of an opening between room and hall, hesitant.

‘All good?’

‘Yeah, whatever, fine.’

She – Peyton, I assume – emerges fully, wielding her suitcase in a way that can be described as no less than violent. ‘Apologies, friend.’ Her hair’s folded in a massive braid that slumps over her left shoulder, and a slim ribcage peeks from underneath a floaty white crop top. All her clothes fit her in that sort of intentionally-too-small way.

‘It’s OK.’ I smooth down the T-shirt I’m now wearing, which, based on the unfamiliar itch of the collar, I realize is on backwards. My face burns red.

‘I should probably say, though, that I think I saw your tit. And I just want you to know that.’

I wince. ‘You think you saw? What else could it have been?’

She blinks. I wonder, briefly, if her eyelashes are full enough to create a draft. ‘Well, Occam’s razor is admittedly not working in your favour.’

I drop back on to my bed and resist the urge to tunnel within it. The ceiling is the most interesting thing in the world to me right now and I may continue to look at it until I die. ‘I will invoice you later.’

‘So warm, you. Welcoming. What an unforgettable summer we’re going to have. What do I call you? Pout? Sulk?’

Never mind the ceiling. I roll over in bed and smash my pillow on to my head. ‘Mona,’ I say into the mattress.

Peyton laughs, a high pierce. Then, realizing: ‘Oh. You’re serious.’

I roll round to look at her, eyes narrowed. This is why I don’t talk to people. My main concern with having a room-mate was privacy as it related to the podcast but just knowing I’m going to have to cohabitate with her regardless of anything else is enough to send me spiralling. Also, I wish I had come with a fake name after all.

‘Would you like to know who I am?’ she asks.

‘Unfortunately, I already do,’ I say, and gesture absently towards her packet.

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘A sleuth.’

I stiffen. And what if I am? I want, suddenly, to match her energy, but don’t want to give her the satisfaction of the matching.