I tried frantically to focus on my stuffed inbox. Most of it was about scholarships and university advertisements.

Remorsefully, I scrolled through the e-mail inbox.

Actually, I would have preferred to be at all these universities now...

Well, at least I still had Larissa here. She had just appeared out of nowhere to tell me that she was going to study here, as well. 

Exactly, that was my best friend. What this girl put in her head, she also put into reality, no matter how absurd her ideas were. She dreamed big. And sometimes she reached too far for the stars, and then I had to catch her from falling.

There was an almost tentative knock at the door, and I lifted my head.

“Mady?”

Either I had just mistaken a complete stranger for my neighbor, or I had scared the hell out of her because the girl, who appeared suspiciously to be the beautiful neighbor girl, paused and eyed me for a few seconds before her memorable smile returned.

“Bayla, right?”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry...” she stammered, “I didn’t know you were here too.”

“You know each other?” Larissa came out of the corner with the salad bowl filled to the brim.

Surprised, I looked over at her.

“We’re neighbors,” Mady clarified to my best friend, grinning carefully. “And I came to see if everything worked out.” Larissa’s expression relaxed a bit, even though I didn’t understand how the two of them knew each other. “I heard there was a big mix-up with the letters.”

Larissa threw an arm in the air. “Yeah, thank God Bayla’s here. Without her, I’d probably get lost here.” She came over to me and dropped her arm on my shoulder. 

Mady carefully closed the door as if it might break. Very different from Emely earlier. 

“You know each other?” she asked in a kind way.

Larissa spoke with her mouth full. “We grew up together, her mother had something like pity and often let me stay with Bay, and so we kind of became friends.”

“I see...” Mady laughed, brushing back one of the thick black strands. “Friends, then.”

Larissa looked at me, winking, before turning to Mady and nodding.

“Do you feel like hanging out with us? I swear, the people who live here are anything but chill, and it feels like everyone has a problem with each other.”

Mady was about to answer Larissa, but footsteps on the stairs stopped her, and two seconds later, I realized who it was.

Grace and Julie... Blair? Anyway, Julie had said they were cousins earlier. But that had been all, since Julie seemed to be very silent.

Now she looked focused, nodding at Grace, who was telling something about a family party.

“And then Amara just kicked her out.”

Grace emphasized her words with wild gestures. Then, the two girls looked at us and stopped their one-sided conversation.

Julie joined us with her laptop while Grace ran into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, more or less unimpressed. 

Something told me she was one of the rich kids on campus.

“I thought they had a little more here.”

Larissa, who had been chewing on a tomato until just now, looked up in surprise.

“Are you kidding?” she laughed, turning to Grace, who immediately turned around.

She had knotted her corkscrew curls up with a sand-colored ribbon, which made her look even more Brazilian.

“No... We have more back home,” she just joked. 

I’m sure she wasn’t kidding. 

“Grace...” it came admonishingly from Julie, who had sat down diagonally across from me and was now typing away on her laptop just as absorbed as I had been a moment ago, pausing to look urgently at her cousin.

“What? Have we not?”

“Still, you don’t have to pretend it’s normal everywhere you go.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Grace started throwing random bits of vegetables into a pot and putting them on a stove, which made me suspect she knew how to cook – unlike me. After all, I had already pulled the fire alarm in our old apartment an incredible five times and subsequently decided I was at war with cooking.

Larissa seemed to ignore the ambiguous conversation about money. She seemed so absent-minded again, but then looked back at Mady, who was standing at the front door like a pillar of salt.

Larissa lifted her bowl. “Tomatoes? I have nachos upstairs, too.”

Only now did the other girls notice Mandy’s presence.

Grace’s eyes snapped open. “What are you doing here?”

Confused, I looked back and forth between Mady and her. It didn’t escape me how Mady was once again ruffling through her hair and about to leave when Larissa raised her hand.

“Relax. She’s a friend of mine.” 

Surprised, Mady turned to Larissa. 

Grace raised an elegant brow at her. “She’s a friend of the Copelands.”

“Nash and I broke up. How many more times, Grace?” 

Suddenly Mady seemed self-conscious, even slightly annoyed. 

I closed my inbox and wondered how everyone here knew each other.

“Tell that to my cousin and not me,” Grace snorted, rolling her eyes and turning to Julie, who in turn was staring at the laptop with red cheeks.