Page 34 of Stranded

It wasn’t the house’s fault. Without Alph here, it’s not lovingly restored and improved like his place… but it was okay. It was always my roommates who were the problem.

I won’t miss it here.

My new home is bright and exciting, full of potential—sexual and otherwise—and above all, peaceful. I can’t believe I’m going to pay the same rent to live somewhere so much nicer, but Alph wasn’t willing to hear otherwise.

As I stare down the hall into the kitchen, I hear the screen door on the porch open.

He’s back!

I grab my suitcases by the handle, but then I catch a glimpse through the lace curtains on the front door and my heart plummets so fast that it leaves a crater in my stomach.

Fuck. It’s not Alph. It’s Derek.

He’s the meanest of my three classmates, the one who spent the whole first year pretending not to remember my name. If we’re alone in the house together, we always find a way of magically never being in the same place at the same time. It’s better that way.

I jump back from the door just in time as he flings it open, then stops short to stare at me.

“The fuck, dude?”

I brace myself and take a deep breath. On the boat ride over, Alph gave me good advice about what to do if they were home:The less said, the better.

He laughs abruptly. “Class starts on Monday. Are you going on vacation?” He pulls a mocking sympathetic face. “Did the doctor tell you to take time off for stress?”

He’s going to keep going until I say something, so I shrug and answer as blandly as possible. “No.”

It’s easier than I expected. For the first time, I can detach from the guy’s words and see them for what they are: cheap jabs. Maybe he feels threatened by what I could do if I stop holding myself back. Well, he’s in for a real surprise.

“Finally came to your senses and quit?” he jeers as he kicks his shoes off to wander down the hall.

“No.” I check my watch—it’s fifteen past, and Alph said he’d be back around now.

Derek snorts. He heads down the hallway, and then he stops dead. He’s staring into my room. My now-empty room, stripped of everything but the furniture.

Shit.I close my eyes for a second, kicking myself. I should have closed it after me, but I didn’t think anyone would come home yet.

Derek storms back to the door. “What the hell?” he shouts at me. “Are you moving out?”

“Yes.”

That’s it—I’m going to wait outside on the street. It’s a nice day, and Derek doesn’t have the guts to say this kind of shit in public where anyone could overhear.

I pull the inside door open, but Derek grabs the handle of one of my suitcases. I whirl toward him, narrowing my eyes so fast that he actually flinches back.

“Let go.”

Derek sneers at me. “We’ll have to get another roommate. You can’t fuck us over like this!”

“I don’t have to do this, but I left next month’s rent in an envelope,” I tell him perfectly calmly. “If you don’t let go of my personal property right now, I’ll go get it.”

He stares at me, clearly dumbfounded that I’m standing up for myself.

So am I, but what is he going to do to me? Yell at me? Say mean things? Pretend he doesn’t know my name? I don’t give a shit what he says anymore. He has no power over me anymore, and he never really did.

Derek’s greed takes over. He lets go and runs down the hallway to the kitchen. “You’d better not take anything that’s ours!”

I roll my eyes and heft my other suitcase to the closed-in porch, and then I yank open the screen door.

I’m not taking anything that isn’t mine. Unlike Derek and his posse,I’mnot a vacant shell of a human being, and I won’t let him drag me down with them.

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