Chapter 4

WRENLEY

By six in the morning my whole life is in three trash bags on the curb.

I packed them by phone light so I wouldn't have to turn on a lamp I no longer pay for.

The first bag is clothes. The second is the swim gear, which is the only thing in any of the bags worth more than the bags. The third is everything else, which turns out to be almost nothing; some books, a mug, a charger, the dead plant I kept meaning to water and apparently could not bring myself to leave.

I don't know why I packed the plant. It's dead. I'm arguably not doing much better, so maybe that's why but I'm sitting on the cold concrete next to it like we're both waiting for a bus that isn't coming.

I have nowhere to go. That's the part I keep arriving at no matter which way I run the problem. There's also no one to call unless I want several hours of concern, disappointment, and life advice I didn't ask for.

But that would mean giving up my dreams to go live the life my parents planned and I am not calling Tess to say can I sleep on your floor and then answer the forty soft questions that follow.

I'm not about to do that because of how much effort I've put into staying here. I need to get a job and I need it fast.

The laundromat behind me isn't open yet. The street's empty except for a delivery truck two blocks down.

So I make the mistake of thinking about my life for thirty seconds and how spectacularly a person can ruin their own morning when they've cut themselves off from everyone who ever knew their real name.

Then a car slows down. And stops. A figure gets out of the car but because he's a bit fat from where I'm sitting, I don't recognise him until he comes closer.

And it's him, of course it's him because apparently humiliation wasn't finished with me yet.

Aurel is in practice clothes, his hair is a mess, and he looks at me, then at the three trash bags, and then at the dead plant, but he doesn't say anything stupid, which is somehow the worst part. I could've handled something stupid.

"Hey," he says. "Why are you out here by this time?"

"It's because I'm a creep. I love watching people go about their day while I sit here homeless."

He looks at the bags again. "How long have you been out here?"

"Long enough to regret being born. Why?" I sigh when I see the frown on his face. "I'm actually waiting for someone." It's the fastest lie I have although it's a bad one.

"Okay." He doesn't believe me but doesn't push either. He just goes back to his car, puts it in park mode, which I didn't tell him to do, and gets out. "Then you can wait for them at my place, because it's freezing and you've got swim gear sitting in a wet gutter."

Wonderful. My options were freezing to death or accepting help.

"I'm fine," I said and my teeth decided that right now was the best time to chatter. Seeing that it was no use lying, I said "I'm not going to your place."

"We have a guest room downstairs, with its own everything. That way, nobody'll bother you." He says it easy, like it's already decided, like he's done this a hundred times, when I happen to know he has never once done this. "Look, I need my tutor not to have hypothermia," he runs his hands through his hair. "I know it's a selfish thing but my grade depends on you not dying."

"That's the worst manipulation attempt I've ever heard." I said between gritted teeth.

"It's working though." He's already crouching to grab the first bag. "You're still talking to me instead of telling me to leave."

He's actually right. I mean, I should tell him to leave. The whole reason I survive up here is that I don't let people close enough to notice things that would trigger their suspicions. Like for example the fact that I don't get sick at all, or that my body runs hotter than it should, or that a cut on my hand is gone by morning.

A guest room downstairs from a hockey player is kinda like the exact opposite of keeping my head down. But because it's forty degrees at six in the morning and the alternative is the bus that isn't coming, I spend thirty seconds trying to think of a better option.

Unfortunately, reality refuses to provide one.

"The gear bag's heavy," I say. "Don't drop it."

He grins like I've handed him something, and pops the trunk.

The moment I saw the house, my face gave me away by how unimpressed I looked. I've seen way better and more beautiful buildings.

Walking from one end of the house to the other took several minutes, and there were so many rooms I couldn't keep count. Nothing rattled as every door swung silently.

The carpets were so thick my feets vanished into them. Sounds floated upward and seemed to disappear before returning as faint echoes.

The kitchen is bigger than my entire old apartment, which is a crime because no one should have this much hallway. As he showed me around the house, I caught sight of a couch that two people could lie down on and not touch.

"Welcome to my humble abode," he says once the tour is over. "So, what do you think?"

"How can you even afford a place like this anyway?" I asked fidgeting with my sweatpants.

"Well, that's the perks of being an only child. If my parents had more children, we would be classified as middle class but since it's just me, there's literally no one else to spend it on but me."

He grins like someone who's never had to check a bank account before buying groceries.

"If you need anything, my room's upstairs by the left. Get some sleep, you look like you need it."

And with that, he left me.

I stare at the number again, waiting for it to become a worse idea than my current situation.

"No," I delete the number before taking a deep breath. "I can do this," I took another one. "I just need to get my shit together."

Then I hear screaming upstairs, which is oddly reassuring. Finally, people are having a worse morning than me.

"This isn't so bad," I whispered when I realised just how big of a mess I'm in before laying down. I meant to rest for an hour. Apparently I blacked out like an elderly Victorian woman waking up when the sky had gone orange with no idea where I was, and for one half-second I forgot all of it.

When I get up, my stomach growls as a reminder that I haven't had anything to eat in twenty four hours. I follow the smell of food which leads me to the shared kitchen. The designers of this house made just one parlour and kitchen so its occupants have to share.

The moment I walk into the kitchen, I stop dead in my tracks.

"Hey," the guy I've been crushing on says. "Swim team, right? From the party." He tilts his head. "You're the new roommate?"

I can't speak. I genuinely cannot make a word out, because my brain is doing the math and the math is insane: the guy I made a deal to win lives across the hall from the boy I made the deal with.

And from the doorway behind me, where he's just come down the stairs and stopped, I feel more than seeing Aurel go still.

He's standing there with a towel over his shoulder, looking at my face; at whatever my face is doing right now, which I can't control and would give anything to take back.

I watched him put it together and understood exactly who I meant. Exactly who he agreed to help me win. Exactly who lives twelve feet from the room he just carried my bags into.

He doesn't say anything, that's how I know it's bad.