Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
It never mattered what I wanted…
I pressed my hand harder against the soreness and felt something akin to relief. The pain reminded me that no one was watching me now. No one would check my closet for forbidden garments or inspect my plate for inappropriate portions.
I was… free.
This apartment was mine—or half mine, at least. And this silence, it was mine too.
I let my hand fall to my lap. The soreness would fade eventually.
The sound of a key turning in the front door made me straighten. I set my feet on the floor and smoothed my hands over my midi skirt.
Anxiousness and excitement bubbled inside my chest. I didn’t know what to expect.
The door opened, and a girl stepped through with a single, large suitcase rolling behind her, the wheels catching briefly on the threshold before she tugged it free.
She was my height, or nearly so. Her blonde hair was cut into a neat bob that brushed just below her ears, stopping maybe two inches above her shoulders. She wore a simple navy jacket and dark jeans.
My new housemate closed the door behind her with a soft click. She moved with the effortless confidence of someone who had done this before, who had arrived in new places and settled right in.
She hadn’t looked in my direction yet, so I took the small second I had to study her. Something about her tugged at my memory. Maybe it was the sharp line of her jaw or perhaps the way she tilted her head as she surveyed the living room—there was a familiarity there that I couldn’t quite name.
Whatever it was, it stirred a faint sense of recognition just beyond my reach.
I studied her for a moment longer, searching and chasing the feeling of familiarity, but it slipped through my fingers. All that remained was the unsettling certainty that I had seen her before… somewhere, somehow.
“Oh, hi,” she said when her eyes finally landed on me. “You must be my roommate. Uh, sorry… I meant, housemate.”
She left her suitcase by the door and walked toward me, extending her arm for a handshake. “I’m Elyssa,” she introduced, her voice warm, unhurried.
“Serafina.” I took her hand. Her grip was firm, but not aggressive. She held my gaze with hesitation, her eyes steady, but there was nothing challenging about it.
She was just… direct. Simply looking.
And somehow, I found that unnerving.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, ever so politely.
Calm and collected. Poised and graceful.
“Likewise.” Elyssa smiled with perfect straight teeth. She was strikingly beautiful when she smiled like this, free and innocent. Elyssa glanced past me toward the hallway where the bedrooms were. “I assume you already picked your bedroom. Which one is mine?”
“The left one.” I pointed toward her bedroom. “We share a bathroom, though.”
She nodded. “Oh yes, I know. I read it in the description. Do you mind that?”
“No, that’s fine.”
“Perfect.” She walked back to her suitcase and wheeled it toward her bedroom.
For some inexplicable reason, I followed at a distance. Something about Elyssa intrigued me. She wasn’t like the other girls at St. Clare’s Academy. Both innocent and pretentious.
Elyssa appeared calm and straightforward.
Something about the way she spoke, the way she walked… it beckoned me with curiosity.
I hovered in her bedroom’s doorway as she stepped inside and set her suitcase on the bed. She unzipped it with the calmness of someone who has done this too many times to count. Packed up their lives only to unpack right after, settling into yet another new place.
I expected her to put each piece of clothing in the closet with precise care but was surprised when she clumsily dumped them inside.
All my clothes were organized by color, and my shoes were carefully arranged in pairs along the closet floor with the toes pointing inward.
Elyssa had no care to do anything perfectly.
“I can almost feel the judgment,” she drawled lazily.
Something shifted in my chest, and I shook my head quickly, denying her accusation.
Elyssa glanced over her shoulders and smiled—not the tight, performative smile I was accustomed to receiving from women in my world, but something looser, more genuine. “Believe it or not, I thrive better in chaos. If everything is too perfect, it makes me jittery.”
She held up a sweater and examined the wrinkles. “Perfection is a facade, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t answer that.
All my life I had been told how to be… perfect.
The perfect daughter.
And soon, I would have to be the perfect wife—if I wanted to live.
My survival has always depended on how flawless and impeccable my character was.
When I didn’t respond, she laid the sweater on her bed and continued unpacking. “Are you from Chicago?” she finally asked after half a minute of silence. “Your accent tells me that you’re not from LA.”
The question was casual, but I felt the old instinct rise—the careful calibration of how much to reveal, which details were safe and which might betray the shape of the life I’d been forced to leave behind. “Yes,” I said. “Born and raised.”