Page 66 of And They Were Roommates

“Jasper can send a letter to her for you.”

I try to answer. All that comes out is a wheeze.

A blurred Xavier clasps Robby’s shoulder. I think. I can’t see straight. “Give bro a break. He’s so high on anxiety that shrooms wouldn’t compete.”

“Charlie would never take shrooms,” Robby grumbles.

I shoot out of my seat and thrust a finger into Robby’s face. “You’re wrong.”

Robby blinks in surprise. “You would?”

“No, I don’t possibly have this disgusting disease you’re talking about.”

“You mean lovesickness—?”

I lean over the table to slap my palms against his mouth. “I saidno.”

“Say no all you’d like,” Robby says, his voice stifled through my fingers. “Scientifically, the hormones involved in human attraction can’t be turned off because you tell them to.”

“If not one of the sister academy students,” Blaze says beside me, “who else did you engage with yesterday?”

Only one.

Nausea devours me as I wander away. Voices call after me—something about where I’m going and if I’ve been hypnotized by arachnids—but I barely hear them.

I’m not sharing a room with Jasper for another second.

“If you need Ms. Lyney, she won’t be back until Monday,” a middle-aged man in a red-and-black-plaid newsboy cap says from the office counter. Must be back-end weekend staff. The name tag on his blazer readsMR. ACOSTAon top andWE’RE LISTENING AND LEARNING. WE’RE VALENTINE!on the bottom.

Unspoken Guideline 14: Mr. Acosta wants me to slam my skull against the counter and split it in half, forever changing the trajectory of his life.

I stand there in defeat. The one day my body rejects itself, I need enough brainpower to explain my housing situation to another person in charge. The gnomes on the wall cackle and jiggle at my suffering.

“Shut up,” I hiss at them.

Only when Mr. Acosta’s buggy eyes bulge larger do I realize what I did.HaveI taken shrooms?

“There was a mix-up with my residential hall room,” I say. “I’m unsure if you could help me with this, but my roommate and I were supposed to have single rooms. There was a mix-up, so now we’re in a double together.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really.” It leaves my lips desperately. Exasperatedly. I can’t hold back any longer. “Ms. Lyney barely looked at my file before she dismissed it.”

Mr. Acosta exhales like he doesn’t get paid enough for this. But he does, according to the tuition I’ll be demanded to pay if I don’t reach the top five soon. “What’s your name again?”

Optimism thrums inside me. “Charlie.”

He types on the computer. “Last name?”

“Von Hevringprinz.”

“German?”

“My name? Um. Yeah.”

“Ah, your roommate is Principal Grimes’s nephew,” Mr. Acosta remarks.

Notyou’re one of our Excellence Scholars. Notyou’re the transfer student. I’m tied to Jasper with a rope. I need to burn it now. I’ll do anything. Weep. Beg. Raise my voice at an authority figure for the first time in my life. “You know that?”

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