I didn’t understand a thing and looked at Larissa, who was squinting at me, perplexed.

Suddenly, the front door burst open, and the brown-haired girl who had disappeared earlier reappeared. 

Emely. Her almost wavy hair looked disheveled, and I discovered a few dirt stains on her jeans. 

Where had she been for so long?

She stopped in front of Mady, her gaze indistinct but very judgmental. Then she turned away. As she walked, she stared first at me, then at the two cousins, until she disappeared up the stairs as quickly as she had burst in. She ignored Larissa entirely.

“Wow, what’s wrong with her?”

Apparently, I hadn’t been the only one here who had sensed this tension.

Larissa looked questioningly at Julie, who looked back uneasy. She was immediately absorbed in her work again, and had consequently turned the question over to her cousin. But Grace didn’t seem to want to answer either.

“Is there some kind of bitch fight going on that we should know about?”

Larissa persisted. But the two of them didn’t seem to want to answer. So, I did.

“Everyone here has something against the Copelands, strangely enough. For whatever reason...”

Grace wheeled around to us.

“They’re dangerous, okay?” She sounded slightly angry, though you could hear the concern coming out.

“Why dangerous?”

Larissa dared to ask what had been on my mind the entire time.

The usually talkative Grace hesitated, however, and Julie didn’t even look up.

What was going on with these two? Were they wearing an invisible muzzle?

I looked more intently at Julie, who was still engrossed in her laptop. At some point, my gaze seemed to make her uncomfortable because she looked up.

“They...” she was about to start, but Grace interrupted her.

“The family is caught up in some kind of drug story.”

I was still looking at Julie, who had more blush coming into her cheeks. She was really cute, but also kind of shy.

“Come on, Grace, that’s not even true,” Mady sighed as if she’d had this conversation a zillion times before.

“Nobody here is talking to you, Mady.”

I gritted my teeth. 

That had been very rude. 

And Mady looked down at the floor.

I was about to say something, but she had already turned toward the door. “I’ll go then, Bayla and...” She looked at my best friend, who was almost choking on her salad.

“Larissa.”

“Larissa...” Mady smiled once more. “Nice to meet you guys.”

Larissa looked after her sympathetically.

When Mady was gone, Grace exhaled audibly. “Finally.”

Larissa turned to her. “Did you have to scare her off like that? She’s super nice.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Nice is the little sister of...”

“Grace!” it escaped Julie, but Grace paid no attention to her cousin, instead looking at us urgently.

“She was dating Nash Copeland.” 

Larissa shook her head. “And you don’t like these Copelands because they probably do drugs? That’s no reason to exclude her like that...”

The cousins fell silent again. 

I decided to change the subject, because this was not how I wanted to communicate with my roommates in the long run.

“And who are the other two girls?”

“You mean Vivienna Westcode and her blasphemy sisters?” inquired Grace as she stirred a wooden spoon in a pan. The smell of garlic and tomato sauce rose to me. “They’re a thing of their own. Just don’t get triggered by their allusions, and you’ll be fine.”

That sounded very promising.

That’s when the front door opened again, and a blonde girl with excessive makeup, a pink miniskirt, a crop top of the same color, and sunglasses entered the first floor. A pink Louis Vuitton handbag dangled from her arm.

The third and final girl from the parking lot. The embodiment of Barbie.

With a mocking look, she glanced at me, then at Larissa, and finally at the cousins. Then she turned outside and called out in her squeaky voice, “Mr. Hendricks, take the bags up to my room!”

Then she walked down the hall with her head held high as if we were thin air and disappeared up the stairs in her killer high heels. As she did so, I wondered how she had even made it here in those shoes without breaking at least one of her legs on the wooden walkway.

“Oh my god, Vi, Amber! I missed you so much!” we suddenly heard her shout from above, at which point another girl started shrieking excitedly. This must have been the girl with the nail file. Amber.

This was followed by the clacking of a lock, and all we could hear were a few muffled snatches of conversation and loud laughter.

Then, hearing nothing more, Larissa and Grace started laughing at the same time.

I couldn’t help but laugh along, and even Julie grinned slightly.

“Oh my gosh! I missed you guys soooo much!” Grace mimicked the girl, and Larissa and I grinned even wider.