Everyone's heads turned and stared at her as she strolled toward us. The female head of the house spoke up.

"Noa, so glad you decided to join us. We were just about to start the connection circle," she said. I felt they were giving far too much grace for being over fifteen minutes late.

"Ugh," I heard Noa mutter as she reluctantly joined the group.

I stared at her as she stood with her arms folded. She had baggy, medium-wash jeans on and a cream-colored button-up that she still managed to make look unprofessional by cutting the long sleeves into short ones and undoing a few buttons.

I frowned at her, and when everyone began talking, I got up and stood next to her.

"Why were you late?" I asked.

Noa looked at me. "Why were you early?"

"I—" I shut my mouth because I didn't have an answer.

Noa looked away. 'I slept in," she said.

That was such a lie. She wasn't even there when I left, but I decided not to push it. It turned out that the 'connection circle' was a strange ritual where we all sat in a circle and held hands, essentially pretending to be telepathic.

I unfortunately had to hold Noa's hand, because I was standing next to her, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Her hands were actually pretty soft, and she had a surprisingly strong grip. We were supposed to close our eyes and feel something surge through us around the circle, which was apparently our connection. But the only thing I was feeling was the sharpness of the guy next to me's nails and the cold metal of Noa's rings.

When we opened our eyes again, Noa was looking at me, but she quickly looked away when I glanced at her.

"I hope we all felt that connection. I know I did," the head girl said.

A few people who were taking this seriously nodded and mumbled in agreement, while Noa just sat there with a weirded-out look on her face.

"Did you feel the connection?" Maddie asked me when we were allowed to leave.

I snorted. "No."

We were allowed to return to our rooms for an hour before lunch, and Maddie came to hang out in mine. We were laughing about something some guy said to her as I put my key in the lock and turned it.

Noa was at her desk, hunched over something she was writing on. She was very focused, and it seemed like she didn't even notice we were there.

Maddie leaned into me and whispered. "That's your roommate?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

Noa looked up, saw us, and slammed her notebook shut. Maddie and I shared a disapproving look as Noa got up and moved to the other side of her bed, sat down, and pulled out her phone. Unfortunately, she didn't leave when Maddie and I settled on my bed and began talking.

"We should pray we get Mr. Keeves for biology. Apparently, he's super cool and takes us on all these fun little field trips," Maddie said.

"Ooh, I hope I get him. We never went anywhere at my old school," I agreed.

Maddie turned to Noa's side of the room. "What teacher do you hope you get, Noa?"

I know Maddie was just trying to be nice and include her, but it wasn't my fault Noa explicitly wanted her life to be separate from everyone else's.

Noa coughed and looked up from whatever she was doing. "What?" she looked pained to even be talking to us.

"Never mind," I grumbled.

Fast forward to lunch, a place where Noa sat alone like an absolute weirdo. Maddie, being the outgoing person that she is, had already made friends and now we were eating lunch with them. Their names were Mariah and Scott.

"Guess who I caught sneaking out of Principal Hackney's office this morning?" Scott said. He had blond, curly hair and freckles that decorated the bridge of his nose.

Everyone turned to look at him. I looked up from my food. "Who?" I asked.

"That Noa girl," Scott said, nodding in her direction. I glanced at her at the other end of the table. So that's where she went.

Maddie nudged me. "Oooh, your roommate's in trouble."

Mariah looked at us. "Noa's your roommate?" she asked. Her brown eyes were wide with surprise.

"Yeah," I answered. "She is."

Mariah raised her eyebrows and stabbed a fork into her broccoli. "Good luck with that."

I perked up. "What do you mean 'good luck'?"

She tucked her straight brown hair behind her ear. "Nothing, don't worry. She's just . . . an interesting person. I wouldn't get too friendly with her."

I wasn't planning on trying to be friends with her, but now I was curious. "Why, have you roomed with her before?"

Mariah glanced Noa's way. "No, but I know a girl who did. She was weird. And some kind of . . . Satanist. And she and the girl got into fights all the time. Fights that Noa started. Rumor was that even the boys could hear them arguing."

Scott raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure that was an exaggeration."

Mariah waved a dismissive hand toward him. "Not by much, it was still bad. But whatever, just be careful.".

I blinked and looked at them. "Oh. Okay, um, cool. Thanks for telling me."

"Of course."

________

When we returned to our rooms later that night, I paced back and forth on my carpet, wondering what I would do. A Satanist? I couldn't room with a Satanist.

Noa wasn't there, and I contemplated asking to switch rooms before anything got bad. Because at the moment, I didn't have the mental capacity to deal with someone like this.

The door opened, and an annoyed-looking Noa walked in. Someone or something had to have made her angry because she looked even more ticked off than usual.

I watched her pull out as she angrily grabbed something off her neck, opened her desk drawer, threw it inside, and shut it firmly. Then she turned around and looked at me.

"Yes? Do you need something?"

"No," I said quickly. "Sorry."

She gave me one last judgemental kook before turning back around.

I spoke up. "Um, Noa? I have a question."

Noa turned around again, and her face showed so much anger that I instantly regretted my decision. But I had to follow through.

"I was just wondering—because I may or may not be thinking of switching rooms—if you, um, were a Satanist."

Noa just stared at me.

"Not that I think you are, or anything, I—I just heard somewhere . . ."

I stopped because Noa had turned away from me as if she had stopped listening.

"Hello?" I said. Noa had pulled a few books from her backpack and placed them on her desk.

"What else?" she said, her back to me.

My eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'what else'? It's a yes or no question."

"You're kind of gullible, Melanie," she said, pulling out her desk chair and sitting down. "So tell me—what else did you 'hear'?"

"I—" I spluttered. "Just answer the question!"

Noa put her pencil down, got up, turned around, and sat backward in the chair. She was now facing me, with an amused look on her face.

"Let me get this straight. A little bird told you I was a Satanist, and you believed them and now you want to switch rooms?"

I folded my arms. "I won't be associated with a devil worshipper."

With Noa's full attention on me, I felt a twinge of nervousness. She looked me up and down. "What do you think?" she asked.

Was she seriously asking me if I thought she was a Satanist or not? "I don't know! Why are you making this difficult?"

Noa shook her head. "So you're just like the rest of them."

I stared at her. She got up and turned around, returning to whatever she was doing at her desk. I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. "Look Noa, I don't know what I did wrong that made you be such a jerk to me, but I'm just asking you a simple question that requires a simple ans—"

"I'm a dick to you because you're just like every other girl that rooms with me."

"Excuse me?"

"You don't know anything about me, Melanie. But suddenly I'm the devil just because I'm different from you."

I blinked. "That's not . . . that's not true."

She didn't say anything.

"Okay, Noa, I'm sorry. I don't think you're a Satanist," I said. She pretended not to hear me, scribbling something in the notebook in front of her. Clearly, my weak apology wasn't enough.

I took a deep breath. "I don't know what happened between you and whoever 'they' are, but can we please just start over?" I said. I had moved to her side of the room, and she closed her notebook when I got close.

"No."

I frowned. "No?"

She turned and looked up at me. Her expression was hard, but it softened when she saw how serious I was.

"Fine," she sneered, and I smiled a bit. "On one condition:" she added, and I frowned again.

"Yeah?"

"The next time a bitch tells you something, you ask me about it first before jumping to conclusions."

I wrinkled my nose at the curse word. "Okay, fine."

She just stared at me. I arched a brow.

"I can tell you already have something to ask," she said.

I sighed. She was right. "Just how many girls have you roomed with?"

Noa turned back to the desk. "I dunno. I lost count after the seventh."

"Oh my God," I said. Just what was I getting myself into?

But Noa kept talking. "Only because they were all the same. And you know what they all had in common?"

I rolled my eyes. "They were bigoted pieces of . . ."

"Shit. Yeah, exactly," she said.

It was quiet for a moment as she scribbled away on the sketchbook. I tried to peer over her shoulder. "What are you drawing?"

"Nothing. None of your business," she quickly answered.

I frowned. "I thought you wanted me to ask you questions."

"Yeah, I kind of forgot how nosy you were."

"Wow, okay. I see how it is."

________

Unfortunately, Maddie and I didn't have the same first class. I bid her a heartfelt goodbye and entered the classroom.

I was wearing a pleated skirt—that I hoped wasn't too short to be professional—and a cable-knit sweater on top. A couple of people were already in the class, and I sat at an empty desk. The bell rang, and the teacher stood at the front of the room.

"Good morning, class! I am Professor Hoffman," he said. He was one of those stuck-up, shirt-tucked-in, slicked-back-hair teachers. "It is thrilling to see so many new faces," he marveled. The room was almost full, and there were only two open desks.

Someone knocked on the door, interrupting Professor Hoffman mid-speech. "Just who might that be, interrupting my class?"

He moved to open the door, and to my utter annoyance, a straight-faced Noa walked in, her bag slung over one shoulder. I expected Mr. Hoffman to give her detention, yell at her, or at least scold her, but he did nothing of the sort. He simply nodded, stepping aside to let her in.

She wasn't even in the dress code. This time, she had gray cargoes and a light blue t-shirt. And of course, her lanyard was in her front pocket again.

She surveyed the classroom once, before walking down the aisle of desks and stopping at the row behind me, sliding into the seat diagonal to mine. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She still hadn't noticed me and just sat there, looking bored.

Professor Hoffman droned on about the syllabus and the rigorousity of the course. He repeatedly emphasized how this was a 'no-nonsense' class, and how one needed to arrive fully prepared to learn every day.

I glanced at Noa again, wondering if she was even listening. She wasn't, it seemed, and she had even pulled out a notebook she was currently scribbling on. I doubted she was taking notes on what Hoffman was saying; she just sat, resting her cheek on her fist while doodling absentmindedly in the notebook.

I was seriously curious about what her drawings looked like. 

A/N:

ok so Noa gets better I promiseeee

<3