Keeley dragged her heavy legs into her dorm room. A wave of extreme weakness washed over her.
The freezing temperature of the lecture hall, combined with the violent emotional whiplash, had completely broken her immune system.
She didn't even have the energy to change her clothes. She crawled straight into bed and wrapped herself tightly in a thick wool blanket.
Her forehead was burning hot. Her head throbbed as if someone was taking a hammer to her skull.
The phone on her nightstand suddenly let out a harsh vibration. The screen lit up the dark corner.
It was an iMessage from HK, asking if she had taken her temperature yet.
Keeley stared at the screen. She bit down on her cracked lips and refused to reply.
Five minutes later, the phone buzzed again. A second message from HK: Medicine is in your jacket pocket. Take it.
Keeley froze. She forced herself to sit up and reached for the suit jacket she had dumped at the foot of the bed. Her fingers brushed against a small cardboard box tucked inside the outer pocket. Cold medicine.
Holland must have slipped it in when he grabbed her phone—or when he shoved the device back into her hand. She had been too shocked to notice.
The realization of his absolute, suffocating infiltration made Keeley's stomach churn. She threw the box violently into the trash can.
She slammed the phone face down on the table and closed her eyes, trying to sleep off the fever.
Bang!
The dorm door was kicked open. Her roommate, Anjelica, walked in with three other girls.
They were carrying takeout bags and blasting deafening hip-hop music from a portable speaker.
Anjelica, still seething with visible jealousy over the fact that Holland had completely ignored her own attempts to make eye contact during the lecture, sat down at her desk. She smashed her fingers onto her mechanical keyboard, deliberately cranking up the volume and screaming into her headset while playing a video game.
The noise pierced Keeley's throbbing brain. She weakly poked her head out from under the blanket.
"Can you please turn it down a little?" Keeley asked, her voice raw and scratchy. "I'm sick."
Anjelica stopped typing. She spun her chair around, her eyes flashing with a petty, vindictive gleam as she let out a loud, mocking sneer.
"You loved the attention at the lecture today, Keeley," Anjelica yelled over the music. "Don't act all fragile now just because you're back in the dorm."
The other girls erupted into harsh, grating laughter.
Keeley's body shook with anger, but the high fever robbed her of the strength to fight back.
She pulled the blanket over her head in despair. Her violent coughing was completely drowned out by the video game sound effects.
Suffocating in the dark under the wool, Keeley realized she could not survive in this toxic environment for another day.
She fumbled for her phone, turned the brightness all the way down, and opened a cheap NYC rental website.
She scrolled through the sketchy, rundown listings deep in Brooklyn, far away from Manhattan.
Looking at the depressing photos and the still-exorbitant rent prices, her eyes burned with tears of sheer helplessness.
Just then, a banner notification dropped down from HK: Ignoring my texts. You must be really sick.
That arrogant, controlling taunt was the final straw.
Keeley pressed her thumb hard against the power button and completely shut the phone off. She severed all connections.
She bit her lip until she tasted blood in the dark, swearing to herself that she would crawl out of here tomorrow morning to look for an apartment.
