Chapter Six - The first class

The walk back to Morrison Hall took me past the library, the student union, and a narrow footpath lined with oak trees so old their roots had cracked the sidewalk like veins beneath skin. I kept my head down, my hands in the pockets of the jacket I'd bought from a thrift store three towns away,navy blue, slightly too large, the kind of garment that said I don't want to be noticed.

But I noticed everything.

The couple arguing near the bike rack. The professor smoking a cigarette behind the science building, his eyes darting left and right like he was waiting for someone to catch him. The girl sitting alone on a bench, her phone pressed to her ear, tears sliding down her cheeks in silence.

Westbrook wasn't just a campus. It was a stage. And everyone on it was performing.

I reached my dorm at 6:47 PM. The hallway on the second floor smelled like microwave popcorn and something chemical;nail polish remover, maybe, or the cheap perfume they sold at the drugstore downtown. Room 217's door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open with my fingertips.

My roommate was home.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, a laptop balanced on her knees, her hair piled into a messy bun that leaked strands of copper and gold. She looked up when I entered, and her face did something interesting,it shifted from neutral to curious to something almost like relief, all in the space of a single breath.

"You're the new girl," she said. Not a question.

"Nova," I replied. "Nova James."

"Ashley. Ashley Grant." She closed her laptop and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her socks had cats on them. Orange cats, the kind that looked like they were plotting something. "I was starting to think you weren't coming. They told me I'd have a new roommate, but then... nothing. No name. No email. Just a key left at the front desk with a sticky note that said 'Room 217.'"

"Administrative error," I said, the lie already warm in my mouth. "They lost my paperwork. Twice."

Ashley laughed. It was a good laugh, unguarded and loud, the kind that made you want to laugh too. I didn't. But I filed it away: Ashley laughs easily. Ashley trusts easily. Ashley could be useful.

"Well, welcome to the Thunderdome," she said, gesturing at the cinderblock walls. "Morrison Hall isn't exactly the Ritz, but it's cheap and close to the dining hall. Also, the RA on the third floor sells edibles, so if that's your thing, just follow the smell of patchouli."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Ashley tilted her head, studying me the way I'd been studying everyone else. Her eyes were dark, sharp, and intelligent. "You're not much of a talker, are you?"

"Not really."

"That's fine. My last roommate talked enough for three people. She always talked about how the campus gave her 'bad vibes.’” Ashley made air quotes with her fingers. "Whatever that means."

"So what happened to her and what kind of bad vibes?"

Ashley paused from her laptop looking outside the window “She was murdered.” She sighed and turned to look at me. "You know. The lake thing. People get weird about it. Like... post-traumatic stress, and it all kind of disappeared after her candle night.”

“Th…this was her room? She st..stayed here?” I stuttered, unable to find words. Ashley held my gaze, steady and unblinking and kind of confused.

"Yeah. This was hers."

I looked around the room again, the skimmed milk walls, the identical twin bed with its flowered quilt, the small desk by the window. A cold knot tightened in my stomach.

"I heard about that," I said carefully. "The girl who.... was drowned."

Ashley’s face flickered. Fear, maybe. Or something else. "Yeah. Alice Lean. It was all anyone talked about for weeks. Then the administration sent out an email about 'healing together' and 'respecting the investigation' and basically told everyone to shut up about it." She picked at a thread on her blanket. "But people don't shut up. Not really. They just get quieter."

I sat down on my bare mattress. The plastic covering crinkled beneath me. "What do they say? When they get quieter?"

Ashley looked at me for a long moment. The cat socks. The fairy lights that had died. The textbook on cognitive dissonance. All of it suddenly felt like camouflage.

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who just got here," she said.

Careful. The word echoed in my skull, Detective Cross's voice, my own voice, the ghost of Alice's voice from a phone call that still played on a loop in my head.

"Curious," I said, softening my voice, making it smaller. "I've always been curious. It gets me in trouble."

Ashley’s expression softened. The flicker of suspicion faded, replaced by something that looked almost like kinship. "Yeah, me too. That's how I ended up in Psych 250. I wanted to understand why people are the way they are." She paused. "You're in that class, right? I saw the schedule on the registrar's desk when I was picking up my mail."

She saw my schedule. Which meant she had been looking and had been paying attention. Which meant Ashley was someone to watch.

"Abnormal Psych," I said. "With Professor Hans."

"That's the one." Ashley leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Word of advice? Don't sit in the front row. He calls on front-row people. And don't mention Freud unless you want a twenty-minute lecture about why he was 'a cocaine-addicted fraud with unresolved mommy issues.'" She grinned. "Direct quote."

I almost smiled. Almost. "Thanks for the tip."

"See? We're going to get along fine." Ashley flopped back onto her bed, her laptop sliding to the floor. She didn't pick it up. "So, Nova James with the lost paperwork and the quiet voice. What's your story? Transfer from where?"

Another lie. Make it boring. Make it forgettable.

"Community college. Back east. I wanted a change of scenery."

"Change of scenery from where?"

"Small town. You wouldn't know it."

Ashley accepted this with a nod, but I saw the way her eyes lingered on my duffel bag, on the worn handles, on the frayed strap I'd wrapped with electrical tape two years ago. She was observant. That made her dangerous.

Or useful. Maybe both.

"So," Ashley said, stretching her arms above her head, "you want the grand tour? I can show you where the good coffee is, which bathrooms have the least amount of mildew, and which professors have reputations you should know about."

"Reputations?"

Ashley sat up. Her face was serious now, the playfulness drained away like water from a cracked cup. "This school has secrets, Nova. Lots of them. And some of them..." She looked toward the window, toward the darkening sky, toward the lake I couldn't see but could feel, pressing against the edge of campus like a held breath. "Some of them are dangerous."

The room went quiet. The radiator clanked. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed.

"Show me," I said.