I squint up at what will be my new home for the next nine months, and a ripple of genuine excitement washes over me—so foreign and out of place that it is sharp and stinging, like electricity, and I have to take a slow breath to collect myself. The five-story brick building is so lacking in embellishment that it could just as easily be a prison. But to me, it represents freedom.

My busking paid well last night, so I made it on time after all—arrived smack in the middle of the move-in hubbub. Parents and students are scurrying in and out of the dorm entrance like worker ants, carrying boxes and pulling suitcases, the scent of adventure and new beginnings sweetening the warm September air. I tighten my grip on the handle to my cello case and give a little hop to reposition the laundry basket back into place on my hip. All these excited students and their proud, anxious parents. Mom would have loved this. She would have eaten this college stuff up like it was a piece of cheesecake.

A rickety elevator carries me to the second floor and I locate my room at the end of a dark, burgundy-carpeted hall, the last room before the stairwell. The door is ajar, propped open with a stack of fat, glossy textbooks. I step into the room just as a brown-eyed, sandy-haired wisp of a girl shoves a dresser drawer closed. “Hey!” she says, her face lighting up with a wide smile. “You must be Malory!” She takes my laundry basket, sets it on the bed, and turns back to shake my hand. “I’m Daphne.”

I look around at the bare room. The cinder block walls are painted a dull beige color, and the dressers are old and beat-up, the finish worn down to bare wood. Pressed against opposite walls of the room are two twin beds, each with a thin mattress, and at the center of the room by the window sits a pair of desks facing each other. Daphne has a suitcase and four storage bins scooted up against her bed. They are all new and pink, and I can’t stop looking at them.

“Did you just get here?” she asks, and I look over my shoulder, thinking she must be talking to someone else since I very obviously just got here.

She notices me looking around and laughs—a bright, tinkling sound. “I mean, of course you did. Duh. Me too. My dad and mom are gonna be here in a sec to help me unpack after they find a parking spot.” She turns and heaves one of the storage bins onto her bed and unclicks the lid. What kind of fairytale life must she live in order to be gifted with pink storage bins?

“I’ve got to go back to my car and get the rest of my stuff,” I say. “You won’t leave the room with the door open, right?”

She gives me a quizzical look.

“My cello.” I gesture at the case. “I’m really paranoid. It’s…expensive.” And not mine.

“Oh, okay. Yeah, I’ll be here.” She tilts her chin at the case. “That your major?”

“Yes. Well, and economics.”

“You’re doubling?”

I shrug.

“Overachiever, huh?” She’s got her eyebrows up, teasing now.

“Something like that.”

I hurry downstairs to the parking spot I managed to score by dumb luck. I only have a suitcase and duffel bag left to bring up—almost nothing compared to what most of the other students seem to be bringing. Some of them actually need dollies to cart stacks of boxes to their rooms.

This time, when I board the elevator, another student gets in behind me. At least, I think he’s a student—his baggy jeans and backwards hat and too-cool slouch remind me of the thugs who think they own the trailer park where I live—or used to live—except that this guy is dark-skinned, and the guys in my neighborhood are white. Whatever, all these wannabes with their pants around their ass are the same. The elevator door clangs shut and we ascend, the cables above us whining and groaning as if we each weigh a ton.

“Yo.”

I flick my eyes at him. I expected college guys to look more put together. Act more mature.

“Elevator don’t feel too safe, does it?”

Shitty grammar, too.

One corner of his mouth lifts into a smile. “Me and a couple people are gonna smoke a blunt in my room if you wanna join.”

He has a weird, affected way of speaking like he’s trying too hard to sound as though he’s from Miami. I’m familiar with the accent, a mix of Spanish and the urban lilt of the street, and I know some people talk this way, but on him it feels dishonest. Everything about him feels dishonest. I give him my fuck-off-or-I’ll-cut-you look.

“You don’t smoke?”

“I don’t know you.”

“I’m Rome.”

As if giving me his name is reason to trust him. “‘A couple people.’ I bet there’s no one else in your room.”

“Come up and see. I’m in 404.”

I don’t respond. The elevator doors clatter open and I roll my suitcase over the threshold.

He shouts after me, “You got a name?”

“Nope.”

“That’s a terrible name!” he yells as the elevator doors jangle shut.

Fucking creep.

Daphne’s parents are in the room with her when I get back. Her dad, a dapper, salt-and-pepper-haired fellow, is elbow-deep in a pink storage bin, and I get that sudden pulling sensation deep in my gut—the same blunt envy that tugs me down like an oversized anchor every time I see dads doing…dad stuff. He looks up at me and grins as he lifts a pink lamp from the bin. “This must be Malory, the double major!”

Holy shit, are they all this cheerful? “That’s me.” I pull my face into a smile and push my suitcase and duffel into the corner next to my cello.

Daphne’s mother is standing at the foot of Daphne’s bed, her delicate ballerina arms crossed over a cardigan-clad chest. She looks exactly like Daphne, but older and with blue eyes instead of brown. “Malory,” she says, “honey, can we help you get the rest of your things from your car?”

“No thanks. I’m all done.”

Her brows furrow as she looks furtively at my tiny pile. “This is all you have?”

The question hits me funny, like she’s talking about much more than luggage, and now I have a ridiculous urge to throw myself into Daphne’s mother’s arms and cry all over her cardigan. I’m sure all teenagers with dead mothers get weird compulsions like that.

I shrug. “I’ve always been pretty minimalist.”

Daphne’s dad is at her desk, poking wires into what appears to be a brand new MacBook. “How refreshing! It’s good to know our daughter is rooming with someone who has her head on straight.”

“It really is,” Daphne’s mom says. She has a pinched look on her face, like she’s holding in a fart…or trying not to cry. Geez, lady, pull yourself together.

I stare down at my suitcase and fiddle with the tag, an old one from the previous owner who had traveled to London. I left it on there because it made me feel like I was going somewhere.

“You guys, stop. Can’t you see you’re embarrassing her?” Daphne snaps a lid onto the now-empty storage bin and slides it neatly under her bed.

I must have turned red. I’m not embarrassed, though, just…well, there are a lot of warm, fuzzy family feelings pinging all over the room. I’m like a puzzle piece from some other puzzle—say, a one hundred-piece garage sale castoff—sitting next to a shiny, thousand-piece monster that takes several days of familial collaborative effort to complete. I don’t fit here.

“No, it’s okay,” I say. “I’m actually gonna get out of here. Gotta practice.” But I realize I don’t have a plan; it’s been nearly a year since I toured the campus and I have no idea which direction the music building is.

“Oh, no, dear,” says Daphne’s mom. “Let us get out of your way. We were planning on running into town for lunch and some last-minute errands anyway.”

“Oh, you don’t have to—”

“Okay Daph, you’re all set up with Wi-Fi now. I wrote the password down here for you so don’t lose it.” Her dad closes the laptop.

Daphne is arranging clothes in the narrow closet near the foot of her bed. She’s ordered them by color—a rainbow of a wardrobe. “Yeah, Malory, no worries,” she says. “Go ahead and use the room to practice, and maybe we can hang out later? Explore campus, meet some people?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Like choreographed dancers, the three of them snap lids onto the remaining bins and slide Daphne’s things around until the room looks tidy and organized aside from my little pile of stuff.

Minimalist. Ha.

Once they leave, I draw my cello case to the center of the room. The instrument inside seems to emanate warmth, as if it’s a sleeping princess. I feel that way about it—that it’s a princess—like if I can wake it up, make it sing, bring alive the magic it’s hiding, it might be able to save me from…well, I’m not quite sure what. The darkness, maybe. I think of my father, how he used to edge his way into my childhood bedroom as I practiced, how he would lean on the door frame and cross his arms with a look of admiration in his eyes. That’s such beautiful music, honey, he’d say, and just as I would begin to believe him, just as the smile would turn up the corners of my mouth, he’d finish, for someone who wasn’t born with a whole lot of talent.

Fell for it every fucking time.

I unlatch my cello case, dear old Dad feeding my resolve. My cello teacher believes I have talent. The music school here at Florida East Coast awarded me a full ride. The people in the street who throw money in my case must think I have something. It’s true though, that cello has never come easily to me the way it would if I were truly gifted. So my dad might actually be right about me not having much talent. But I think I have something that is almost as good: tenacity. I work harder than anyone else. Tenacity is very good at masquerading as talent.

I pull the instrument from its case. It’s beautiful, the most beautiful cello I’ve ever played, with warm-toned wood of a unique grain that looks like tiger stripes—an honest-to-god work of art. A couple of years ago my cello teacher back in Sarasota arranged for me to play for a local arts patron who owns a collection of rare stringed instruments. He’s an eighty-year-old eccentric, a former cellist himself, and he’s giving away his instruments through a foundation he formed specifically for that purpose. This cello is one of those instruments, and I’m allowed to play it with the stipulation that if I can win a fellowship to Aspen Music Festival during my first year of college, I will be permitted to keep it. If I don’t win the fellowship, the cello will likely be given to some other up-and-coming student who has more talent (or more tenacity) than I do, and I’ll have to figure out how to replace it.

There is no way I could ever afford an instrument of this caliber. It’s worth twenty-five thousand dollars, more money than I can wrap my head—or legs—around. And anyway, I don’t want a cello like this one; I want this one. No other will do.

I unfold my wire stand and set my sheet music and metronome on it, then pull the chair from my desk to the center of the room where I sit with my cello tucked between my knees. The sheet music before me thrums with importance: The Elgar Cello Concerto. It has to be perfect in time for my Aspen audition in January, so ingrained in my fingers that even if my mind freezes with stage fright, even if I entirely forget where I am and why I’m there, my muscles will remember what they are supposed to do.

Tenacity.

With a deep breath, I set my metronome ticking, place my bow on the string, and begin my warm-up drills.

---

After two hours of practice my roommate still hasn’t returned, so I pack up my cello, lock the room, and wander downstairs to explore. In the grassy field adjacent to my dorm I notice a group of students sitting under the shade of a tree, maybe eight or nine of them, laughing and talking. I figure they must be first years like me and probably only just met today, but they lean in with such relaxed camaraderie, it’s like they’ve known one another for years. Is it supposed to be that easy?

My phone buzzes in my bag: a message from Liza, asking how everything’s going. The entire campus has Wi-Fi, so I can use messaging apps and no one needs to know I can’t afford a data plan to make actual calls.

My roommate is Skipper, Barbie’s kid sister, I reply, but nice. Aunt Bonnie behaving?

While I wait for her response, I look over at the group of students again and realize one of them is staring at me. It’s the creepy guy from the elevator. When our eyes meet, he grins, and I turn to walk in the other direction.

Liza texts back, She’s out somewhere.

Lock the door, I type, but then I delete it because honestly, what am I, her mother? Then I retype it and hit send before I can second-guess myself again. What if someone were to walk into our unlocked trailer and rape and murder my little sister? I can’t not tell her to lock the door.

She responds: Door is locked and I’m KNITTING. I’m officially an 80yo granny. U happy?

I smile and text, Very.

I wander for an hour or so, using my campus map to find the library, the music building, the practice rooms where I will likely spend most of my time. Students are already practicing—I can hear them through the thick wooden doors. I recognize the horn solo from the beginning of Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel, those awful few measures they all practice incessantly. It makes me want to run back for my cello so I can practice too.

When I get back to my dorm room, Daphne is sitting at her desk and pecking at her laptop. From the looks of it, she’s finished unpacking. She’s tacked four black-and-white inspirational posters to the walls, each an image of a hard-bodied, sweaty female athlete flexed in mid-swing or punch or splash or flip, with just one word in bold at the bottom: Perseverance, Courage, Dedication, Triumph. At least they’re not pink. Her bed is made up with a gleaming white duvet and a pile of decorative white pillows. On the floor of her rainbow closet, she has organized her shoes in two neat rows. Every single item looks brand new.

On my side of the room, my suitcase and duffel bag are still sitting lamely by my naked bed. Pretty sad. I unzip my duffel and pull out new sheets, a worn but beautiful quilt from Goodwill, and Gerta, a green and purple stuffed hippo that Liza knitted for me. Besides my cello and a framed picture of me, Liza, and Mom, Gerta is the only thing here I’d bother to save in a fire. I give her a squeeze. She still smells like Liza, fresh and pure and good.

Daphne closes her laptop and eyeballs the hippo, and I think, My feelings about this girl hinge on whatever she says about the hippo. But she asks, “Did you get some practicing done?”

“Yep.” I set the quilt and hippo on my desk chair and stretch the fitted sheet across my bed. It sags like oversized underwear on the sad little mattress, which is still nicer than my mattress at home. That has a broken spring I have to be careful not to roll onto and is so worn in the middle it’s like sleeping in a contact lens.

“Will you play for me sometime?”

I flick open the top sheet. “You like classical music?”

“Totally. My dad used to take me to see the orchestra when I was little. It relaxes me.”

“See, I don’t think classical music is relaxing at all.” I smirk as I tuck the sheet in, my back to her. “Some pieces are, sure, but the stuff from the Romantic era, it’s intense as fuck, so raw and gritty and just…it makes me want to throw myself out a window. Oh, for shit’s sake, did I seriously forget to bring a pillow?” I wave my hands as if I can conjure a pillow from thin air for the empty pillowcase dangling from my hand.

Daphne is shaking with silent laughter. “Use one of mine until you get a chance to go to the store. I have like five.” She tosses a pillow at me and I catch it reflexively.

Shit. What if I still have lice nits in my hair? What if I sleep on her pillow and infect her? But I don’t know how to turn down a stupid pillow without looking like a freak. I accept the pillow—a dreamy, feather-down cloud of happiness—but I do at least replace her pillowcase with mine.

“Anyway,” she says, reopening her laptop. “I’d love to hear you play sometime.”

“Okay.” I spread my quilt over top of the sheets and set Gerta in front of Daphne’s pillow. The hippo stares at me like she’s embarrassed I put her on display so shamelessly. I snap a pic for Liza, then transfer my clothes from my suitcase to the dresser. Three of the five drawers are still empty. Lame. I stuff my duffel in my suitcase and tuck them, along with my laundry basket, into my closet.

“Oh, and by the way,” Daphne says, her eyes on her laptop screen. “Anytime I’m not using my computer, you’re welcome to it. I’ll create you your own profile so we don’t have to worry about mixing files, okay?”

I lower myself to my bed, trying to act cool, but I can feel the heat beneath my skin. Like I want to be my roommate’s charity case. “You don’t need to do that,” I tell her. “I can use the computer lab.”

She shrugs. “Just sayin’.” Her laptop screen casts a bluish glow on her pale face. “So…do you party?”

“You mean…like drugs?” What does that have to do with computers? Is she worried I’ll get high and break it?

She laughs. “Well, maybe, but I meant do you go to parties?”

Oh. We’re not talking about computers anymore. “Sure, sometimes.” If you count going down the street to drink beer from a keg in someone’s yard.

“I had to ask, I mean, with the double major thing and the cello thing…and I bet you were valedictorian and president of the honor society, too.”

She thinks I don’t get out much. “I did get valedictorian.”

She lets loose a loud, barking laugh. “Are you for real? Oh my god, that is hilarious. And president of the honor society? Did I guess that right too?”

I can’t help grinning. “Not quite. Just a member, and only by default because of my grades. I’m not a ‘run-for-office’ kind of girl.” I even make the air quotes.

“I was president of my student body,” she says with a hurt look.

“Oh, I mean—it’s totally cool to be—”

“I’m kidding,” she says, laughing. “Seriously, I know I’m a walking cliché. I was a cheerleader too, and I got homecoming queen. My hair is even naturally blond.”

My roommate is a homecoming queen? I stare at her, trying to stop myself from making a snap judgment. The homecoming queen at my school was not a nice person. Not to me, anyway.

“I just figured I’d get that out of the way in case you’re one of those people who hates homecoming queens just…because.” Now she’s blushing.

“I…I don’t. I don’t just…randomly hate people.” I pick guiltily at a loose thread hanging from my Goodwill quilt.

“Cool.” She leans back in her chair, does this little hair flip thing that makes me think of the popular girls from school. “So, there’s a kegger tonight at some house just off campus, walking distance. That’s why I asked about partying. Wanna go?”

“Sure,” I say, but though my voice is airy and upbeat and agreeable, in my head I’m all turned around—a little off balance. Daphne is the kind of girl who lives in a gated community with a name like Tuscan Villas. She’s not supposed to want to hang out with me. I grab Gerta the hippo and sit her on my lap, hug my arms around her.

“Sweet.” Daphne hops up and pulls a fluffy white towel from the top shelf of her closet. “I’m gonna shower. Then you wanna grab dinner and afterward come back and get ready?”

“Sounds good.”

She reaches for her shower caddy, throws her towel over her shoulder, and pulls open the door. “By the way,” she says, turning. “That hippo is cute as shit.”