Page 8 of Psyop Kings

When I reach her dorm room, I pound on the cheap wood with my fist. The difference in where we dorm here at USC is like night and day, a real testament to our dissimilar financialupbringings. Everything here smells weird and is aging, and yet, I still like her place better than the stuffy, prestigious building I live in.

No one answers, so I start banging on the door again. Finally, I hear the bolt disengage before the door swings open.

“You dropped! How could you do that without telling me?” I demand, already pointing a finger in her face.

Except it’s not her face.

A sleepy, freckle-faced girl with seven facial piercings stares at me without emotion. “What are you going on about, Barbie?”

I don’t bristle at the name because it’s not the first time Megan’s roommate, Drea, has called me that. Barbie may or may not have driven a cherry-red Audi like me, but I know for a fact she wasn’t batshit crazy.

“You’re not crazy.”

Maura flashes her disapproving frown whenever I call myself that.

“Where’s Megan?” I push against the door, but the girl standing behind it has at least sixty pounds over me, so it goes nowhere.

“Gone,” Drea says, scowling at me. “You woke me up. You can go now.”

This time, I put all my effort into muscling past her into the room. Drea curses at me but allows me to pass. I scan the small space, looking for my friend.

Her usually neatly made bed has been stripped. The pictures of her cat back home no longer pepper the paint-chipped walls. A once huge stack of YA dystopian and vampire novels is nowhere to be seen.

“What the hell?” I mutter under my breath. “Where is she?”

Drea huffs before crawling back into her bed. “Gone. Like I said.”

“Where? Why? How?”

“I’m not her keeper,” Drea grumbles. “All I know is she was all moved out when I got in late last night.” She shrugs one shoulder. “It’s not like she left a note or anything.”

I sit down on Megan’s bed and survey the empty side of her room. “This is all so weird.”

“I had three different roommates freshman year,” Drea says. “Not that strange. Some people can’t cut it.”

But she can cut it.

Megan is smart and hardworking.

Things just aren’t adding up.

“I need to talk to her,” I say to Drea, “but she’s not answering. I’m really worried.”

Drea sits up on one elbow. “Don’t look at me. I don’t have her number.”

They’ve been sharing a room all semester and they never exchanged numbers? It irritates me more than it should. Drea seems to be a strong, confident girl. Megan could have used someone like her in her court.

All she has is me.

The thought saddens me. Maybe she’ll call me later and tell me everything. We may be new friends, but I already feel a gaping hole in my chest. Nothing about this feels right.

I slide my backpack off to pull out a notebook. Quickly, I scribble down my number with Romy, not Barbie, at the top and then tear out the sheet of paper.

“Call me if you get word from her or if she comes back,” I instruct as I set the paper down on the end table. “I really need to speak to her.”

“If I promise, will you leave, Barbie?”

I have the urge to flip this girl off, but I refrain. “Yup.”

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