Chapter 24: The Unexpected Roommate
Leonid woke to the feeling of carpet burn on his cheek and the distant, tinny sound of pop music. He blinked, the world resolving into the gritty panorama of floor-level dorm: dust bunnies, a lost sock, the scarred leg of his bed. The music was coming from his phone, buried somewhere in the tangle of his sheets. Rosé’s alarm.
A muffled groan came from above. A hand, pale and dotted with silver rings, flopped over the edge of the mattress, feeling around blindly before retreating. The music stopped.
Silence, thick and woolly, filled the room. Then a voice, raspy with sleep. “Did you sleep on the floor?”
Leonid pushed himself up, his spine protesting with a series of clicks. Rosé was peering down at him, her blonde hair a chaotic sunburst against his gray pillowcase. She looked amused, her head propped on her hand.
“Bed was crowded,” he muttered, getting to his feet. The memory of the previous night—the confession, the easy talk, the hollow laughter—settled over him, but lightly. It didn’t feel heavy. It felt… simple.
“You’re a weirdo,” she said, but she was smiling. She stretched, the hem of her shirt riding up. “I’m starving. You have food?”
“Coffee. Maybe a stale granola bar.”
“A gourmet,” she declared, rolling off the bed. She padded barefoot to his desk, picking up the whiskey bottle and examining the label before putting it down. “So. Today’s agenda?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, watching her. She moved through his private chaos like it was a museum exhibit, curious but not judgmental. “I have practice at ten.”
“Volleyball?” She made a face. “Sounds sweaty. And early.”
His phone, now on his desk, buzzed. A text lit up the screen. It was from a number he’d deleted but whose digits were etched into his memory.
Where were you last night?
He didn’t touch it. The screen went dark.
“Ignore that,” he said, more to himself than to her. He filled his cheap coffee maker with water, spooning in grounds. “You can hang. If you want. I’ll be back by one.”
“Deal.” She found the granola bar, unwrapped it, and took a bite. “I’ll guard your fort. Play some PlayStation. Maybe write a song about your tragic lack of groceries.”
The coffee began to drip, its bitter scent cutting through the stale air. For the first time since leaving Le Cygne, Leonid’s gut unclenched, just a little.
He didn’t go to practice.
He told himself it was because Rosé was playing The Last of Us and he wanted to show her the best way through the downtown chapter. He told himself his knee was tweaky. He told himself a lot of things, sitting on the floor beside her, their shoulders almost touching as she gripped the controller with intense focus.
“Just shoot the damn clicker, Rosie.”
“I’m stealthing! God, you’re such a brute.”
They ordered pizza at noon. She picked the olives off her slices and stacked them on the corner of the box. He smoked by the open window, the breeze carrying the sound of her humming—a sweet, off-key melody.
“What’s that?” he asked, grinding the cigarette butt on the outside brick.
“Something I’m working on. It’s about… I don’t know. The quiet after a storm, maybe.” She tilted her head. “You ever write songs?”
“My life isn’t that interesting.”
“Liar.” She said it lightly, but it felt like she saw right through the worn fabric of his nonchalance.
His phone buzzed again, three times in quick succession. He didn’t look. He knew. The weight of the ignored messages was a physical thing, a cold stone in the pocket of his sweats.
By the third day, a pattern had cemented itself. Rosé would appear at his door with her laptop and a bag of snacks. They’d smoke. She’d complain about her music theory homework, and he’d explain the concepts in half the time it took her professor, drawing diagrams on napkins. She’d call him a show-off, but she’d learn it. They’d game. They’d talk about nothing—stupid memes, bad TV, the existential dread of student loans. The space in his room, once just a place to sleep and brood, became something else. It held laughter. It held her discarded sweaters and the smell of her coconut shampoo mixing with his cigarette smoke.
He skipped another practice. Then another.
Marco called. “Dude, Coach is pissed. You sick or something?”
“Something like that,” Leonid said, watching Rosé attempt to braid her own hair in the reflection of his dark laptop screen.
“You sound fine. You better have a doctor’s note.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
He hung up. The guilt was a low-grade thrum, but it was easily drowned out by the immediate, uncomplicated present. This was easy. This was clean. There were no burning gazes, no landmines of childhood history, no fathers with knives for tongues. Just a blonde lesbian who thought his cynical commentary was hilarious and who didn’t expect a single goddamn thing from him.
On Friday, they were crossing the quad, heading to the library so she could “borrow his brain” for a statistics paper she was failing. The autumn sun was weak but bright. Rosé was yapping about the unfairness of standard deviations when Leonid saw her.
Jennie.
She was sitting on a low stone wall, a textbook open but unread on her lap. Dressed in black, as always. She wasn’t looking at the book. She was looking directly at him, her feline eyes tracking his every step from fifty yards away. A statue of cold, quiet observation.
Rosé followed his line of sight. “Who’s that?”
“No one.”
“She’s staring at you like you’re the last lifeboat on the Titanic and she’s got the only ticket.”
“She’s weird.” He quickened his pace, putting his body slightly between Rosé and that unnerving line of sight. “Forget it.”
But Rosé, bless her, was a yapper. “She’s in my econ seminar. Never says a word. Just watches. It’s kind of chilling. And kind of cool. You know her?”
Leonid felt the lie form, automatic and smooth. “Vaguely. From around.”
They pushed through the library’s heavy doors, the silent, tomb-like atmosphere swallowing them. He found a carrel in the back. Rosé spread out her notes, a chaos of highlighted texts and question marks.
For an hour, he explained confidence intervals. He drew normal distribution curves. His voice was low and steady, a professor’s cadence. But a part of his mind was back on the quad, pinned under that dark, unblinking gaze. Where were you last night? The unread messages seemed to pulse in his pocket.
He was walking Rosé back to her dorm later when his phone finally rang. Not a text. A call. Marco flashed on the screen. He answered.
“Where the hell are you, Manoban?” Marco’s voice was sharp, no longer friendly. “Game film review. Now. Locker room. Coach is about to bench you for the season.”
Shit. He’d lost track of the days. “I’m on my way.”
He ended the call. Rosé raised an eyebrow. “Trouble in athletic paradise?”
“Forgot a thing. I gotta run.” He felt a sudden, irrational urge to apologize to her.
“Go, go!” She shooed him, smiling. “Save your athletic scholarship. I’ll see you tomorrow? We need to finish that level.”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
He jogged across campus, the late afternoon air cooling the sweat that had broken out on the back of his neck. The athletic center loomed, a monument to a discipline he was letting crumble. He pushed into the locker room. The familiar smell of bleach, sweat, and cheap body spray hit him.
The room went quiet. His teammates, in various states of undress, looked from him to Coach Briggs, who was standing by the whiteboard, a marker held like a baton.
“Manoban,” Coach said. The word was flat. “Nice of you to join us.”
“Sorry, Coach. I lost track—”
“I don’t care.” Coach cut him off. “Your personal time is your own. This,” he gestured to the room, to the team, “is a commitment. You’ve missed four practices. You’re late for film. You think because you’re tall and can spike a ball, this is a hobby?” He walked closer, his eyes scanning Leonid’s face. “You look like shit. You’re distracted. You’re benched for the weekend scrimmage. Consider this your only warning. Next time, you’re off the roster.”
A hot shame, different from the restaurant shame, flushed through him. This was a shame of his own making. A stupid, unforced error. Nods from his teammates. They weren’t angry; they were disappointed. It was worse.
The film review was agony. He saw every mistake he wouldn’t be on the court to fix. When it was over, he lingered, pretending to retie his shoes until everyone else had filed out.
The silence of the empty locker room was profound. He sat on the bench, head in his hands. The familiar urge to smoke itched under his skin. He reached for his bag.
And stopped.
His gym bag was unzipped. His clothes were inside, his shoes. But on top of his clean practice jersey, something lay that he hadn’t put there.
A single silver cherry blossom hairpin.
He picked it up. The metal was cool. It held the faint, ghostly scent of her perfume. She’d been here. In this male space, this sanctuary. She’d opened his bag and left this. A token. A claim. A reminder.
He didn’t feel watched. He felt invaded.
The stone of guilt in his pocket vaporized, replaced by a cold, sharp blade of something else—a terrifying, exhilarating fear. She wasn’t just staring from a distance anymore. She was moving pieces on the board he thought he’d walked away from.
He clenched the hairpin in his fist until the delicate metal edges bit into his palm.