‘Anyway, lucky you. I would have picked that bed.’

‘If I let you have it, will you stop talking so loud?’

‘Almost definitely not.’

‘I didn’t even know I’d have a room-mate.’

‘Uh, I could have deduced from your tone and also nudity.’ She looks up and tilts her head in a way that is annoying to like. ‘What’d you think it’d be, Caesar’s fucking Palace?’

‘That’s my room!’ a boy calls from the hallway, followed by a chorus of snickers. ‘Caesar’s fucking palace,’ someone else mutters.

Peyton leans out into the hall. ‘Ha-ha, cool cool cool.’

A boy peeks into the room and looks me up and down. ‘Oh,’ he says to Peyton, ‘this’ll be good.’

‘Loves me already, obviously.’

I groan a little into my hands, more to myself, and something whacks me over the side of the head. It’s a croissant wrapped in plastic.

‘There,’ she says. ‘Sustenance. Up. Join the rest of the human race.’

I’m so hungry but I don’t want to eat it because it’s from her.

She nods towards it. ‘Eat. For peace.’

Fine. I sit up and take a bite. Peyton laughs to herself.

‘Yeah, OK,’ I say, mouth full, ‘what is it?’

‘You know that video of the raccoon who grabs a whole handful of cat food, and he’s kind of cradling the pellets to his chest and runs away on two legs?’ She’s going to say I look like him. ‘You look like him.’

An impossibly long summer.

‘This is your first year,’ she says. ‘Obviously.’

‘Is that a question?’

‘No. How’d you find out about this place?’

I chew for a good and silent five seconds at least before replying. This is when I begin to lie. ‘Visited a lot when I was little.’

‘You from in-state?’

‘No.’ I try to swallow a bite of croissant but my mouth is dry and for a terrible moment it’s stuck at the back of my throat. ‘Indiana.’

‘College?’

‘Harvard,’ I say.

‘Oh,’ Peyton says, and recoils. She leans back out into the hall. ‘Liam, she goes to Harvard!’

I assume it’s Liam who cackles. ‘And you’re the dumbest bitch alive!’

Peyton cackles. ‘I know!’

I smile a little. It’s absolute mania.

‘You?’ I ask.

‘U Del.’ That’s the University of Delaware. It’s a public Ivy; she’s clever. Book smart, anyway. ‘Let me guess. Sophomore?’

‘No, freshman.’

‘Aw. Baby. You didn’t want to stay for your last summer in the nest?’ Peyton nonchalantly shoves a handful of underwear into her dresser drawer.

I shrug. ‘I didn’t have many friends or anything. not much keeping me there.’

‘No? Why? What’s wrong with you? Apart from the obvious.’

I think about this for longer than I should, and even my answer is a non-answer. ‘I was just always busy with other stuff, I guess. Working.’