It happens on a Tuesday.
I'm at my desk trying to care about *The Great Gatsby*. My essay doc is open and the cursor's been blinking in the same spot for ten minutes. Something about the green light and hope and reaching for things you can't have. I don't buy it, but Dr. Ellis wants three pages by midnight and I need the grade. Roman's on his bed, one leg bent, the other hanging off the side, scrolling TikTok with the sound off so I don't have to hear it. His sock has a hole at the toe and his big toe keeps poking through every time he flexes his foot, like it's waving at me. It's 9 p.m. The radiator's hissing like it always does when it's trying to decide if it wants to work. Normal. Quiet. Ours.
The door beeps.
Green light.
We both look up because people in this dorm don't knock. They beep in and expect you to be fine with it.
She walks in like she's been here before. Because she has. Blonde, tall, hockey jacket tied around her waist with the sleeves dangling past her knees. I've seen her at every home game since October. Third row, behind the glass, next to the goalie's girlfriend. She knows exactly when to scream and exactly when to pout for the Jumbotron. Her sneakers are white and spotless. They look expensive.
"Hey," she says, and she's only looking at Roman. Her smile is practiced. Pretty. The kind that usually gets her what she wants. "You didn't text back."
Roman sits up so fast his phone slips off his comforter and hits the carpet with a soft thud. He doesn't even glance down to see if the screen cracked. "Chloe. Hey. I, uh—" His eyes cut to me for half a second. Just a flick. A check-in. Then back to her. "I'm kinda busy tonight."
Chloe's gaze follows his. She takes me in — desk, laptop, hoodie I've been wearing for two days, essay about a book I don't like, hair I haven't cut in a month. Her assessment is quick and dismissive. I'm not a threat. I'm furniture. Then she looks back at Roman and her smile gets smaller. It doesn't drop, exactly. It just pulls in at the corners, like she's recalculating. "Busy?" she says, tilting her head. "It's Tuesday, Rome. You're never busy on Tuesdays."
"Yeah." He stands up now, and he runs a hand through his hair until it sticks up in three different directions. He does that when he's stalling. "I have a midterm tomorrow. Econ. And my roommate's here." He gestures at me with an open palm, like I'm an exhibit. Like I'm a reason.
Chloe lets out a laugh. Short. Sharp. Not mean, but not nice either. The kind of laugh you use when someone tells a joke that isn't funny but you're supposed to be polite. "Since when do you care if your roommate's here?" She takes a step further into the room. I can smell her perfume now, something sweet and clean. "Come on. You know I don't mind an audience."
My hands go cold on my keyboard. The keys are suddenly too hard under my fingers. I know this scene. I've lived this scene. This is Old Roman. September Roman. The guy who'd catch my eye from across the room, jerk his chin toward the door, and I'd know. *Give me two hours. Go study. Don't come back until 11.* I've done it maybe ten times since I moved in. Maybe more. I never counted. Grab my bag, mumble something about needing a book from the library, walk the loop around campus twice until my feet hurt and my cheeks are numb from the cold, come back when the light under the door is off.
So I do what my body remembers how to do. I stand up. My chair scrapes against the floor, loud. I reach for my backpack where it's slumped against the desk leg. The canvas is warm from the radiator.
Roman sees me move. "Viktor, don't."
It stops me with one foot half out of my chair. He said my name like it was a command, not a request. Like *stay*.
Chloe's eyes bounce between us. Her smile is gone now. She looks confused, and people like Chloe don't like being confused. "What is going on?" she asks Roman, but she's still glancing at me like I might have the answer. "Are you, like, being serious right now?"
Roman walks to the door. He opens it wider than he needs to, so the hallway light spills in and cuts a bright yellow rectangle across our rug. It lands right on my feet, on my stupid holey socks. "Sorry, Chloe," he says. His voice is even. Not cold, but not warm either. Final. "Not tonight. I've got that test and I'm not— I'm not doing this tonight."
"Not doing what?" She crosses her arms. The hockey jacket sleeves swing. "Hanging out? Talking? Because last week you were all over me at Matt's place after we beat State."
"Yeah," he says. He scratches the back of his neck. "Last week was last week. Tonight I've got stuff."
"Stuff." She repeats it like the word tastes bad. "Your roommate is stuff now?"
"He's not stuff," Roman says, and there's an edge in it now, the same edge he gets on the ice right before he hits someone. "He's my roommate. And I said I'm busy."
Chloe is quiet for a second. She looks at me again, really looks this time, and I want to disappear into the wall behind my desk. Then she looks back at Roman and shakes her head, and the blonde hair that was perfect when she walked in is a little messed up now. "You're seriously gonna make me leave because he's sitting there writing a paper?"
"Yes," Roman says. Simple. No explanation. No apology in it.
She stares at him. Her mouth opens like she's going to argue, then closes. Then she rolls her eyes so hard I'm surprised they don't get stuck. "You know what? Whatever. You're being weird." She turns on her heel. The white sneakers squeak against the tile. "Call me when you're done playing house or whatever this is."
She walks out. She doesn't slam the door, but she pulls it shut behind her with enough force that the frame rattles. The click it makes is loud in the quiet.
The room is quiet again. But it's not the same quiet as before. Before, it was comfortable. Now it's thick. Like the air after a thunderstorm, when you're not sure if it's really over or if it's just pausing.
I'm still standing with my backpack half on my shoulder. One strap dug into my palm. Roman is still by the door, his hand resting on the handle like he's making sure it stays closed.
"You didn't have to do that," I say. My voice sounds weird to my own ears. Thinner.
"Yeah, I did," he says. He doesn't turn around yet.
"It's your room too," I try. "You pay the same as me. If you want people over, you should—"
He finally drops his hand from the door and turns to face me. "I know it's my room. I just didn't want to." He walks back to his bed and sits on the edge. The mattress groans under him. "I didn't want to, Viktor. That's it."
I put my backpack down. Slow. The zipper clinks against the metal leg of my desk and the sound feels too loud. I sit. My chair makes that embarrassing creak it always makes. My heart is doing something stupid in my chest. Not panic. I know panic. This is lower. Deeper. Tight and hot and uncomfortable, like I drank coffee too fast and now it's just sitting there burning.
"Sorry," I say to my laptop screen. The words on it don't make sense anymore. *Gatsby believed in the green light…*
"For what?" He sounds genuinely confused. Like I just apologized for the weather.
"For being here." It slips out before I can catch it. Before I can make it sound less pathetic.
Roman looks at me then. Really looks. Like I just spoke in Russian and forgot to translate and he's trying to piece it together anyway. "Viktor, you live here," he says, slow, like he's explaining something to a kid.
"I know, but—"
"No." He cuts me off, and it's sharp. Not loud, but sharp enough that I flinch. "Don't. Don't do that thing where you make yourself small so I can have someone over. Don't pack your shit and disappear because you think that's what I want. I'm not that guy anymore."
I don't know what to do with that. My throat feels closed up. So I do the only thing I can think of. I put my fingers on my keyboard. I press T. Then delete it. The cursor blinks. Blinks. Blinks.
After a full minute, his voice is quieter. Almost careful. "You good?"
"Yeah." The lie is out before I think about it. It tastes like the old fillings in my molars. Metal and old.
He doesn't push. That's the worst part, I think. He just leans back on his hands, stares at the ceiling, and lets it go. I can hear the radiator again. I can hear my own breathing, too fast.
At 10:30, my phone lights up on my desk.
Maya: *did roman just turn down chloe miller???*
Jamal: *no way*
Priya: *way. my roommate saw her leave mcclane hall. she looked pissed*
Maya: *VIKTOR WHAT DID YOU DO*
Jamal: *dude is whipped*
Maya: *JAMAL*
Maya: *Viktor answer your phone*
I flip my phone face down on the desk. The light from the screen leaks out around the edges for a second before it goes dark.
Roman's phone buzzes on his bed. He glances at it, then at me, then huffs a laugh through his nose. No humor in it. "They're annoying," he says to the ceiling.
"They're your friends," I say to my essay.
"They're nosy as hell," he says. He gets up. The floor creaks under his feet. He goes to the bathroom and shuts the door. The fan clicks on, loud and whirring.
I count to five. Six. Seven.
Then I open my desk drawer. It sticks halfway, like always. The journal is under my Calculus notebook, blue cover frayed at the corners from how many times I've opened it. I pull it out. The pages fall open to the spot they always do.
Seven words. One per line. A list I never meant to make but kept adding to anyway.
*Safe.
Roman.
Mom.
Maya.
Papa.
Party.
Stayed.*
My pen is already in my hand. I don't remember grabbing it. The tip hovers over the page. Black ink pools there, threatening to drop. I write an eighth word underneath the others. My handwriting is small, like if I make it tiny enough it won't count.
*Chloe.*
I stare at it. The name looks wrong on the page. It doesn't belong with the others. My chest does that tight, hot thing again, but different now. Jealous? Mad? Scared? I don't know the English word for it.
I cross it out. One line. Then another. Then another, harder, until the pen almost rips the paper. Until the word is just a black block of feeling I don't understand yet.
Under it, I write something else. Just as small. But I press down so hard the letters indent the next two pages. So hard my knuckles go white.
*Stay.*
The bathroom fan clicks off.
I slam the journal shut. Shove it back under the Calc notebook. Kick the drawer closed with my foot. It shuts with a bang and I flinch at the sound.
Roman comes back out. His hair is damp around his ears. He smells like mint and that cheap 3-in-1 body wash the school puts in all the dispensers. He doesn't look at me. He just climbs into bed, kicks his covers into a twist, and reaches up to click his lamp off.
The room goes dark except for the blue glow of my laptop.
"Night, Viktor," he says. His voice is muffled by his pillow. Casual. Normal. Like he didn't just turn a girl away at the door. Like I didn't just carve a word into paper and hide it like a secret.
I look at the ceiling. At the water stain in the corner that looks like a country I can't name. At the shadow of his bed, the shape of him under the blankets, the space between his mattress and mine. It used to feel like a border. Like a line I wasn't supposed to cross. Now it feels like something else. Something I don't have the language for yet. Something that feels a lot like that green light Gatsby kept reaching for.
"Night," I say.
I close my laptop. The essay can wait. Dr. Ellis can wait. The green light can wait.
I don't go to the library. I don't grab my bag. I don't make myself smaller and disappear into the night so he can have the room.
I stay.
And for the first time since I moved in, since September, since I learned how to take up as little space as possible in every room I enter, I let myself wonder if he wanted me to. If he chose the quiet and the essay and the guy in the hoodie over the pretty blonde girl with the practiced smile.
I let myself wonder if maybe, just maybe, he chose me.