Georgia
My roommate arrived like weather.
I’ve been in the dorm room for maybe twenty minutes - long enough to find my key at the front desk, climb two flights of stairs, and figure out which of the two beds isn’t already covered in someone else’s things - when the door bangs open so hard it hits the wall.
"Okay, so the stairs here are a war crime," a voice announces before I even see who it’s attached to, the words tumbling out in a rush, "and I say that as someone whose family has been dragging luggage up them since before the elevator was invented, which, fun fact, still isn’t invented, we’re going on three centuries of stairs."
A girl backs into the room hauling two suitcases at once, a third one wedged under her arm, and a potted plant balanced precariously on top of the whole stack. She’s got dark curly hair pulled into a knot that’s falling apart, and she’s wearing a sequined top that catches the light every time she moves, which is constantly, throwing little flecks of gold across the walls like she’s brought her own weather system in with her.
"You must be Georgia." She drops all three suitcases in a heap by the second bed without breaking stride, sets the plant down on the windowsill like she’s placing a trophy, and turns to face me fully for the first time, grinning like we’re already friends. "I’m Mandi. Bellweather. Two Ls, one D, don’t ask me why, my grandmother had opinions."
"Hi," I manage, still slightly stunned by the sheer volume of her arrival. It’s been about two hours since I got here, and between the trees and the gates and the boy who caught my arm like it was made of glass and fire at the same time, I haven’t had a single quiet moment to process any of it. Mandi doesn’t seem like the type who leaves room for quiet moments anyway.
"This," she says, gesturing at the plant with a flourish, "is Gerald. He’s a fern. He’s been through a lot. Survived a dorm fire two years ago, an overwatering incident freshman year that was entirely my fault, and one very aggressive squirrel. Say hi to Gerald."
"Hi, Gerald."
"He appreciates that," she says, satisfied, dropping onto her unmade mattress, bouncing once, the frame creaking under her. She finally seems to actually look around the room, at my open suitcase, at the skate guards poking out of my bag by the closet. Her eyes land on the bag for exactly one second longer than anything else in the room, taking it in, cataloging it, before moving on. Her fingers pause against the quilt for just a beat, a small hitch before she keeps going, and I get the distinct sense the not-asking is deliberate, not incidental. She just files it away and keeps talking like it’s the most natural thing in the world to room with a competitive skater she’s never met.
"So," she continues, propping herself up on one elbow, her tone brightening. "First year at Rosethorne. Big year. Terrifying year, if we’re being honest, though nobody ever is about that part. My family’s been coming here forever, so I basically arrived out of the womb already knowing where the good bathrooms are and which vending machine eats your money."
"Forever?" I ask, curious.
"Forever." She repeats it slower this time, drawing the word out, her smile lingering on it a beat too long, like it means more than the casual way she’s tossing it around. Like it’s a fact she’s said a thousand times and never once actually thought about. "Bellweathers have been at this school for generations. It’s kind of our thing. There’s probably a portrait of one of my great-great-somethings hanging in the main hall looking extremely unimpressed with modern fashion."
"That’s a lot of history," I say.
"You have no idea," she says, waving a hand like she’s brushing the comment away before it can go anywhere. She pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, rocking back slightly on the mattress. "This place runs on tradition, you’ll figure that out fast. Everything here has a tradition." She makes air quotes around the word, fingers hooking sharply in the air, and something about the gesture doesn’t match her tone. Like she’s holding a door half open and half shut at the same time.
I watch her fingers curl and uncurl. "What kind of traditions?" I ask.
"Oh, you know. The usual," she says, rattling it off fast, almost too fast, counting on her fingers like she’s reciting something memorized instead of actually thinking about the answer. "Founders’ Day. The winter formal. Weird stuff with the alumni association, mandatory attendance at things nobody explains the point of. You just show up and clap when everyone else claps." She shrugs, an easy shrug, but something underneath it I can’t quite name surfaces in her face for half a second. Not lying exactly. More like avoiding a road she doesn’t want me on yet.
I let it go for now. There’s already a lot to unpack about this place, about the gates and the crest and the boy with burning hands, and I’ve been here less than two hours. I’m too tired to chase down every strange thing tonight.
Mandi flops backward onto her bed, arms spread out wide, staring up at the ceiling. "Anyway. You’ll get used to it here. Everybody does eventually," she says, her voice easy at first, then trailing into a pause that stretches a beat too long. Then, her tone shifting into something quieter, more deliberate, like she’s been building up to saying it this whole time and finally found the nerve: "Don’t go into the forest after dark, by the way."
I laugh, because it sounds like the start of a joke, the kind of thing you’d say to freak out a new roommate on her first night in a strange place. "What, is it haunted or something?"
Mandi’s face goes still, the easy warmth draining out of it in an instant, and she doesn’t laugh back.