Page 24 of And They Were Roommates

“Write a poetic love letter and recite it,” he says. “Within five minutes.”

This is happening. I’m being told to recite a love letter to my long-dead crush. My stomach tightens. “Don’t I get a prompt?”

“You need one?”

“It’d help?”

“I see.” My desire to strangle him over how confused he sounds intensifies. “Imagine what typical adversities a couple would face when split by such an evil, towering, gated wall.”

That’s barely a prompt.

I go sit at my desk with my chosen pencil and notebook. I scribble down a first line, but the curtains rustling in the breeze are too distracting, and the scent of fall leaves mixing with the room’s explosion of cinnamon and floral fragrance is too overbearing. My brain floods with camp memories of Jasper, raising his hand with more meaningful questions and gaining more praise from guest speakers than I ever did.

Jasper snatches my pencil. I reach for it, but he tucks it behind his ear. “Time’s up.”

I glare at his wrist, devoid of a watch, even though Valentine repeatedly told us to bring one. “How would you know?”

“It felt like five minutes.”

“How are you surviving here?” I gesture to his empty wrist. “All we have is the bell tower. Neither of us even brought a clock for our room.”

Jasper points toward the curtains. “I can tell based on where the sun or moon is in the sky. You can’t?”

“No?”

He hums. Judgmentally. “Stand and read.”

I look down at my paper again.

Roses are red, violets are blue

I

Pushing in my chair, I debate lighting one of Jasper’s candles and setting the notebook on fire. Jasper is Rank One. He can’t see me fail already.

Think, Charlie. “Roses—”

“Look at me. I want to feel the emotion.”

I do, and the pressure skyrockets. Jasper’s eyes are such a familiar piercing blue, gazing back the same as when we’d write by the lake and he’d ask me to recite what I’d written for workshop. He always wanted to hear mine.

“You can trust me with your emotions,” Jasper says. “We’re roommates.”

Strangely, my first instinct is to believe him. Although Jasper has been as obnoxious as predicted since I got here, he’s also been oddly kind to me, constantly asking to be my dining hall buddy and trying to learn more about me so we can bond. Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he remembered.

“Jasper?” I say.

He watches me just as brightly as he did two years ago. It’s enough for my senses to come roaring back. Jasper showed me the samekindnessthen. The only difference is that I was still naive enough to believe it.

What am I thinking?

“Never mind.” I take a breath. “Roses are red. Violets are blue. I…” I rack my mind for something. Anything. “If only… this wall… weren’t between us, our love could… grew. Grow. Wait. Roses are red—”

Jasper yanks away the notebook. “You will attend love lessons with me daily.”

I must’ve heard wrong. “But I have to study!”

“This is a race against the clock, von Hevringprinz. On top of our usual demands, the winter mixer is nearly here. Our busiest event of the year.”

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