I push open the door to room 312, exhausted in that bone-deep way that comes from a double shift and a pop quiz. I'm pretty sure I failed. The smell of garlic and espresso still clings to my clothes. All I want is to collapse and not move until morning.
But Rachel's at her desk.
Actually there—sitting upright, papers spread before her. Official-looking things, the kind with letterheads and too many signatures. When I walk in, her head snaps up. Something flickers across her face—alarm, horror—and then it's gone. She shuffles the papers together, quick and practiced, slides them into a drawer. Closes it. Turns to me with a face trying very hard to be normal.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey." A pause. "You work at that Italian place? Near campus?"
I blink. "Yeah. How'd you—"
"Thought I saw you there." She's watching me carefully. "I was supposed to go with Alex tonight, but something came up. And then I saw this girl who looked just like you, carrying trays, and I thought—nah, can't be. But I went closer, and..." She shrugs. "It was you."
Heat creeps up my neck. I didn't know anyone I knew had seen me in that apron, bussing tables, looking like exactly what I am: a girl trying to make rent.
"Yeah," I say quietly. "School's expensive. My family can't—" I stop. Shrug.
Rachel's quiet a moment. Then: "If you need help, I could—"
"Thanks. I'm fine." The words come too fast. "Really. I've got it."
She nods, but something in her eyes says she doesn't believe me.
That's when I notice the bag.
Orange. Expensive-looking. That Hermès logo even someone like me recognizes. It's open on her bed, spilling its contents across the comforter like someone rummaged in a hurry. Lipsticks. Perfume. Tissues. A tampon, unwrapped, fallen out mid-search. And bottles—several, different sizes, all open. Pills spill from one, little white dots scattered on the orange fabric like spilled salt.
I stare longer than I mean to.
Rachel follows my gaze. "Headaches," she says. Too fast. "Migraines. Doctor gave me something."
"Are you okay?" The question slips out before I can stop it.
"I'm fine." She waves a hand. "Little things. Health stuff. I take meds every day. You get used to it."
You get used to it. The way she says it—flat, practiced—makes something twist in my chest.
I drop my backpack on the bed, planning to study. But Rachel's still there, still watching me, and the silence feels heavy.
"Hey." Her voice is softer now, almost tentative. "Wanna sit on the balcony? Get some air?"
I'm tired. So tired. But something in her expression makes me nod.
The balcony's small—barely room for two chairs—but the night air is cool against my skin, a relief after the restaurant's stuffy warmth. No stars tonight. Just darkness, and far below, the pinprick lights of campus, students moving between pools of yellow like small fish in the dark.
Rachel settles into the chair next to me. In her hand: a bottle of red wine, already open. Two glasses dangling from the other.
"Drink?" She holds one out.
I shake my head. "Can't. Alcohol allergy. The real kind, not the fake one people use when they don't want to drink."
She stares at me. "That sucks."
"So I've been told."
She pours herself a glass anyway, takes a long sip. "Alcohol's the best thing, honestly. Only thing that makes my brain shut up." She stares into the dark. "You're lucky you don't need it."
I don't feel lucky.
Silence. Then: "I think you're cool, you know."
I almost laugh. "Me?"
"Yeah. You." She's looking at me now, and something's open in her face, something I haven't seen before. "The girls I grew up with—they don't think. They just exist. Attach themselves to whoever has money and call it a life. Handbags and plastic surgery and which yacht party they got invited to, like any of it matters." She shakes her head. "You're not like that."
Heat rises to my face. "You just don't know enough people. If you did, you'd realize I'm pretty ordinary."
She doesn't answer. Just keeps looking at me with those dark eyes, and I feel suddenly exposed, like she's seeing something I didn't mean to show.
"Why psychology?" she asks.
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"In class. You're always reading psych stuff. Why?"
I look away, out at the dark sky, at the distant lights. "I've always wanted to help people. Kids, especially—kids who've been through things. I've seen what happens to people who carry too much from their childhood. They grow up and they're just... broken. And no one helps them." I pause. "There's someone I care about. Someone who needed help and didn't get it. I don't want that to happen to anyone else."
Rachel's quiet. When I glance at her, she's watching me with an expression I can't read. In the dim light, her face is softer—younger, almost. She's beautiful, I realize. Even without makeup, even in the dark. Maybe especially then.
"I used to have dreams," she says finally. "Stupid ones. The kind you laugh about later."
"What happened to them?"
She shrugs. "Life. I'm not like you. I'm a pessimist. I expect things to fall apart."
That's why you drink, I think. But I don't say it.
I don't know what makes me ask. Maybe the wine, even though I'm not drinking it. Maybe the darkness, the way it makes everything feel less real.
"Why do you live here?"
She blinks. "What?"
"You're Josh Carrington's daughter." I say it carefully, testing the weight. "You could live anywhere. A penthouse. A house with a gate. So why this tiny room, with a random roommate, in a dorm that smells like instant ramen?"
She's quiet a long time.
"I've never lived with another girl," she says finally. "Growing up, it was just me. Staff, tutors, whatever—but no one my age. No sleepovers, no shared bedrooms." She laughs, but it's hollow. "I thought it might be fun. Like in movies. Girls staying up late, talking about nothing."
She looks at me.
"Turns out I don't know how to do that. Be normal. Talk to people." A pause. "But I don't really get to talk to you much, do I?"
I don't know what to say.
"People see the surface," she continues. "The bags, the cars, the parties. They think they know what my life is." She sets down her glass, and her voice changes—darker, heavier. "But to see is not to believe. Underneath all that... there are things I can't talk about."
She stops. Her jaw works, like she's deciding whether to say more. Then she shakes her head.
I don't push.
"Today," I say instead. "I saw you and Alex. On the street. You looked..." I trail off, not sure how to finish.
She laughs. Actually laughs. "If only."
I frown. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing." She waves a hand. "Everything. Don't believe what you see, Hannah. None of it's real."
"Then what is?"
She looks at me. In the dim light, her eyes are dark, unreadable.
"The things you can't see," she says. "That's what's real. You have to feel them."
I don't understand. But before I can ask, she shifts—sits up straighter, shakes off whatever just passed over her face.
"Hey. My birthday's coming up. Will you come?"
I blink. "To your party?"
"Yeah. It'll be stupid—fancy, lots of people you won't like—but I want you there." She pauses. "Alex will be there too. In case that matters."
I think about my bank account. About the tips I've been saving, the careful calculations I do every week to make sure I can eat. A party like hers—there'll be expectations. Gifts. Dresses. Things I can't afford.
But Rachel's looking at me with something I haven't seen before. Something almost like hope.
"Yeah," I hear myself say. "I'll come."
She smiles. Just a little. But it's real.
And then she's hugging me.
Out of nowhere—she stands, stumbles slightly, and then her arms are around me, her weight pressing in, and I'm so surprised I forget to move. She's heavier than she looks, or maybe I'm just smaller, but suddenly I can't breathe—
And then I feel it.
Moisture. On my shoulder. Warm.
Oh god, not again—
But it's not vomit. It's slower. Softer. And there's a sound—a small, hitched sound, like someone trying very hard to be quiet and failing.
She's crying.
Rachel Carrington is crying on my shoulder.
I stand there frozen, arms half-raised, not sure what to do. Then the wind picks up—cold, sharp—and she shivers against me, and something in me shifts.
I wrap my arms around her. Hold her up. She's not that much taller than me, but right now she feels heavy, heavy, like she's carrying something I can't see.
"Come on," I murmur. "Let's go inside."
It takes forever. Half carrying, half dragging, I get her through the kitchen, down the little hallway, back into our room. She collapses onto her bed, and I stand there a moment, catching my breath.
Then I see her face.
Eyes swollen. Cheeks wet. Mascara smeared in dark streaks down her temples. She looks nothing like the girl I've known—the one with the sharp tongue and the expensive bags and the careless confidence. She looks small. Broken.
I grab a tissue. Wipe her face gently, the way Sara used to do for me when I was young and couldn't stop crying. Rachel doesn't open her eyes, but her breathing slows, just a little.
The light from my desk lamp catches her arm.
I see it. The tattoo—that curling dragon, whatever it is—winding up from her sleeve. But underneath it, if you look close, if you really look—
Scars.
Thin ones. Pale against her skin. Dozens, maybe more, running in ragged lines up her forearm. Old—some of them, anyway—but I can see where the tattoo was meant to cover them. Meant to hide them.
I stare at her arm a long moment. At the marks that someone left there. That she left there, maybe.
Then I look at the bag on her bed. At the pills scattered across the orange fabric.
I pick up one of the bottles. Read the label.
Lorazepam. Take one tablet every 8 hours as needed for anxiety.
Not migraines. Not headaches.
I set the bottle down carefully, like it might break.
Rachel breathes slowly on the bed, her face finally peaceful in sleep. But I can't stop looking at her. At the scars. At the pills. At everything she's tried to hide.
Something cold settles in my stomach.
This girl—my roommate, this stranger I've been sharing a room with for months—is hiding something. A lot of somethings. And I have a terrible feeling that whatever it is, it's bigger than I can imagine.
I sit on the edge of my bed, watching her sleep, and I don't know what to do with any of it.
The room is quiet now. Just her breathing, slow and steady. And somewhere in the darkness, the weight of all the things she didn't say.