“Yet I just met the three of them a few days ago while shopping!”

My words finally released the tension in the room, and we couldn’t help but laugh loudly until the door opened for the fourth time, and we all abruptly fell silent.

A slightly chubbier man in his mid-fifties was struggling with two pink suitcases. He dragged them through the first floor toward the stairs. Poor guy.

Quietly, but still with a smirk on my lips, I turned back to the email.

“I can’t find anything,” I finally snorted, and Larissa came over to me. She looked at the laptop as if she knew her way around it but came to the same conclusion.

“Mh, maybe try the secretary’s office?”

“Now?” I asked, turning to her.

“What are you looking for?”

Julie had joined in our little conversation. She seemed genuinely interested, so I didn’t hesitate for long.

“I just didn’t get one of those emails that listed my lecture halls.”

“Wait a minute...” She tapped away on her keyboard a few times before showing me her screen.

What in the world?

“Wow, are you some kind of computer genius?” It came from Larissa, who was also looking in amazement at the list of my specific seminar rooms and lecture halls.

Julie sheepishly brushed one of her ash blonde strands behind her ear.

“These are just the room schedules.... Nothing special.”

“Julie the humble computer genius,” Grace sighed, coming over to the table with a pan and trivet. “She’s been doing this for years.”

Julie pinched her lips together and avoided our gaze.

“Can I take a picture of it?” I asked her kindly, to which she nodded in modesty. 

And then I wondered how she knew what I was studying, but before I could ask her, Larissa had already spoken up, and in addition, snatched the laptop from Julie.

“Hey, look, we have the first seminar together.”

Indeed, Larissa had told me she would start with English tomorrow.

“We have them all together because we’re in a housing complex,” Grace called out from the kitchen.

“But it’s funny that English is mandatory for everyone here? That’s more of a foundation subject then, isn’t it?”

Larissa’s question reminded me of the differences between the Canadian and American education systems. There were some. And on top of that, there were the Vanderwood’s special regulations.

“Yeah, I guess,” Grace said with a shrug, returning with spaghetti. “Where are you guys from?”

Almost simultaneously, we answered, “California.”

She looked between us, impressed. “God, am I jealous.... And then you guys came here? To Blairville?”

Finally, someone who understood my suffering.

“She moved here with her mother. I just didn’t want to leave her alone.”

Typical Larissa.

“Well, welcome to Blairville,” Grace laughed and sat down at the table. “I’ve been cooking too much. Would you like to join us for dinner?”

“Yes, I’d love to!” it escaped me a little too energetically. 

My obsession with food was really something to worry about, but life was too short for that. Larissa didn’t say no this time, either.

Blondie’s butler had limped through the house with three more suitcases, and Larissa and I had already made bets on how many more suitcases there would be.

We had sat at the table until 10 p.m. talking about everything from high school years in California to juicy Vanderwood professor rumors.

Julie and Grace were actually okay and easy to talk to. Thankfully, there were still people like that around. Not like the other three up there that Grace was in a room with. She had really wanted to get out of our room. Probably because of Emely and the bizarre drug rumors.

I decided to give Emely a chance. The same applied to Mady, who was apparently convicted because of her ties to the Copelands.

The bed I was lying in that night was more back-friendly than the uncomfortable mattress in my new room in Mum’s house. They had probably spent a lot of money on this one, too. I turned to the wall and pulled the covers up to my chin. And for the first time, I fell asleep without any worries.

Chapter 16

Larissa

“They were talking about some football players until after midnight!”

Julie had to smile as Grace told us about her first night with the three other girls. Admittedly, it was entertaining. And I didn’t envy her sleeping space one bit. But she had chosen it just to avoid being in the same room with Emely. However, Emely had already left when I was the second one to wake up this morning to take a quick shower. Unfortunately, the bathroom had already been occupied, and I had no desire for any discussions in the morning. Especially not with people like Vivienna, Amber and Kelly.

Finally, I had nothing better to do than get upset about the house's architecture. A single bathroom... Seriously? What were people thinking here anyway? Eight girls and one bathroom. 

The architect had definitely been a man.

“And you don’t want to switch with Emely?” Bay asked.

“Even if I wanted to, she wouldn’t. Who would willingly sleep with those chicks?”

I understood Grace’s anger.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a glance upward told me the sky was still covered with dangerous cloud towers that seemed to be putting up as much of a fight as all the girls on campus. Wind rustled the crowns of the leafy trees around us, and a girl in front of us had her dark green Vanderwood baseball cap blown off.

“This weather would make me depressed in the long run,” I sighed, missing the hot Californian sun on my skin.

“It’s normal for the time of year in Blairville,” Grace commented, and I suppressed a frustrated sigh.