Chapter 1
I knew I was going to regret moving into residence the moment I saw the bathroom. Not because it was dirty. In fact, it was surprisingly clean for a student building. The white tiles were shining, the mirrors were wiped, and it even smelled like lemon cleaner. The problem was the person standing in front of the mirror.
I stopped halfway through the doorway with my toiletry bag in my hand. He was tall, not extremely tall, but tall enough to make me want to straighten my back without thinking about it. He had short black hair that he was fixing with his fingers, a loose black t-shirt that hung off one shoulder, baggy jeans that sat low on his hips, and a thin silver chain around his neck. One hand was resting on the sink, and he looked completely relaxed, like he owned the place.
I blinked. Then I slowly looked at the sign outside the door. It said LADIES in big pink letters. I looked back at him. Then at the sign again. Then at him. Maybe I was tired from carrying boxes all day. Maybe I had walked into the wrong bathroom by mistake.
I stepped back outside into the hallway and checked the sign again. LADIES. Yes. I was sure I could still read. Okay, so I wasn't lost. Which meant he was.
I walked back inside, my bag suddenly feeling very heavy. He was still there, and now he was looking at me through the mirror. Our eyes met in the reflection. His were dark and calm, and he didn't look surprised to see me at all.
Neither of us said anything for a second. The tap was dripping slowly.
I cleared my throat because someone had to say something. "Excuse me?"
He raised one eyebrow, just one, and his reflection stayed completely still. "Yeah?"
His voice was deep. Low and rough, like he had just woken up. My eyes widened before I could stop them. Oh, absolutely not. This was not happening on my first day.
"Are you lost?" I asked, trying to sound polite and firm at the same time.
He slowly turned around to face me properly. He leaned back against the sink and crossed his arms over his chest, and the movement made the silver chain catch the light.
"What?" he said.
I pointed toward the door behind me, as if he hadn't seen it. "This is the women's bathroom."
He stared at me for a long second. Then he glanced toward the hallway where the sign was, then looked back at me, his mouth starting to twitch like he was holding back a smile.
"I can read," he said.
"Then you know you're in the wrong bathroom," I said quickly. My voice was a little too loud in the small tiled room.
For a second, he just stared. Then the corner of his mouth lifted. He was smiling. Not a small polite smile, but a slow, amused smile that made his whole face change. Why was he smiling? I was being serious.
"Are you serious?" he asked.
"Very serious. There are other bathrooms on the ground floor for guys."
He tilted his head a little, and the smile grew wider. "So you think I'm in the wrong bathroom?"
"Unless there's something I'm missing," I said, folding my arms too.
"Maybe there is."
I frowned. What did that mean? He stepped away from the sink and took one small step closer. He wasn't threatening at all. In fact, he looked more amused than anything, which somehow made me even more irritated. My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag until my knuckles turned white.
"Look," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "I'm not trying to be rude. I just moved in today and I..."
"You're doing a great job of not being rude," he interrupted, his voice light and teasing.
I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. "I'm just saying that there are other bathrooms. This one is for girls."
"And I'm saying I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be," he said calmly.
We stared at each other. The air felt strange and tight. That was when I started to really look at him. The tiny silver hoop in his ear. The neat, shaped eyebrows. The smooth skin with no beard at all. The way his t-shirt hung loose but you could still see the soft curve of his chest underneath. The long fingers with light pink nail polish on the nails. The way he stood, one hip popped out slightly.
Something in my brain clicked, but too slowly. I opened my mouth. Closed it again. My face was already getting hot. "Wait"
His smile turned into a full grin now, showing a small gap between his front teeth that I hadn't noticed before.
"Finally," he said.
"You're" My voice cracked a little. "You're a..."
"A woman?" she finished for me.
I froze completely. My whole body felt like it had turned to stone. The toiletry bag slipped a little in my hand. She laughed. The sound bounced off the bathroom tiles, loud and free. It wasn't a mean laugh, but it made my ears burn even more.
"Oh my God," I whispered. My hands flew up to cover my face. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. "I am so, so sorry. I genuinely thought...."
"I know what you thought," she said, still laughing. She leaned back against the sink again, her arms crossed, enjoying this way too much. "You thought I was a guy who walked into the ladies' bathroom to stare at himself in the mirror."
"I didn't mean it like that," I said quickly, my voice muffled behind my hands. "You just... your hair, and your clothes, and your voice"
"My voice?" She raised both eyebrows now. "Wow. You really know how to make a girl feel special on the first day."
"This is so embarrassing," I groaned. I slowly lowered my hands, peeking at her through my fingers. "I swear I'm not usually like this."
When I finally looked at her properly, she was grinning at me, her eyes shining. Up close, I could see how pretty she was. Her skin was smooth and brown, her lashes were long, and that small silver hoop caught the light every time she moved her head.
"What's your name?" she asked, her tone softer now, like she had decided to let me live.
I hesitated, still embarrassed. "Nolwazi."
She nodded, tasting the name. "Nolwazi. I'm Zuri."
I tried to smile, awkward and stiff. "Nice to meet you, Zuri."
"Is it?" she asked, her head tilting again. "After you just accused me of being a man in the women's bathroom?"
"Please, don't remind me," I said, and I couldn't help it, I started laughing too. A small, nervous laugh that hurt my chest a little. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.
She pushed off the sink and adjusted the chain around her neck. "You new here?"
"Yeah. I just got my keys an hour ago."
"First year?"
"Third year. Literature. You?"
"Same. Third year, Fine Arts." There was a short pause, and her eyes dropped to my bag, then back to my face. Her smile faded just a little, like she was thinking about something else. "What room did they give you?"
I told her my room number. Apartment 4B. Her expression changed. It was so fast I almost missed it. Her smile stayed, but her eyes went still, and her fingers tightened around the edge of the sink.
"Interesting," she said quietly.
I frowned. "What? Why? What's interesting?"
"Nothing." She said it too quickly. She walked past me toward the door, and as she passed, I caught that soft coconut smell again, clean and warm. I stepped aside to let her through.
"Okay" I said, confused.
She stopped right beside me, so close I could see the faint shine of her lip gloss. She looked down at me because she was a few inches taller, and her voice dropped lower, almost to a whisper.
"I'll see you around, Noli."
Something about the way she said my name, slow and sure like she had already decided to call me that, made my stomach flip in a strange way. It wasn't uncomfortable because she was rude. It was uncomfortable because I forgot to breathe.
She walked away without looking back, her hands in her baggy jean pockets, her short hair bouncing a little with each step.
I watched her disappear down the long hallway until I couldn't see her anymore. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. My pink top, my little gold earrings, my freshly done braids, my red cheeks. I let out a long sigh that fogged up a small part of the mirror.
"Why did I have to embarrass myself like that?" I whispered to my reflection.
I grabbed my bag and left the bathroom quickly, my heart still beating a little too fast. I told myself it was just embarrassment. That was all. I had absolutely no idea that I was going to see Zuri again twenty minutes later.
I certainly didn't know that I was about to share a small two bedroom apartment with her for the next ten months. And if I had known, if someone had told me at that moment in the bathroom that the cool, handsome girl I had just mistaken for a boy was my new roommate, I probably would have turned around, walked straight back to my car, and driven all the way home. Because when I finally put my key in the door of Apartment 4B and pushed it open, Zuri was standing in the middle of the living room with a box in her hands, staring at me like she had just seen a ghost.
And the first thing she said was not hi. She looked me dead in the eyes, dropped the box on the floor, and said, "No. Absolutely not. Tell me you are not my new roommate."
