Only If You’re Lucky

The living room has been picked up, sort of, beer bottles collected and tossed into the trash. There’s a candle burning on the coffee table, something citrusy and herbal like eucalyptus and lemon, the equivalent of spraying Febreze on dirty laundry. As if the scent alone could somehow render the place clean.

I walk out of my room and clear my throat, three pairs of eyes turning toward me.

“Girls,” Lucy announces, a grin on her lips. “This is Margot. Roommate number four.”

I raise my hand, a sheepish wave, and walk toward them on the couch, trying to make a quick calculation in my mind: Do I plop down, too, just pretend that I’m one of them? Or stand at a distance and wait to be invited?

“Where’d you find her?” Sloane asks, eyeing me like I’m some stray dog Lucy dragged in from the street. Like I might have fleas.

“She lived on our hall.”

“Our hall?”

“Yes,” Lucy says, a hint of annoyance peeking through. “The last door on the left.”

“Why have we never met her before?”

“You’re meeting her now.”

I stay standing, taking in Sloane’s skeptical gaze. Nicole is chewing on her lip, like she’s trying to work out some math problem in her mind. I’m not surprised they don’t know my name. I barely left my room at all last year—but still, the fact that my face isn’t even vaguely familiar sends a deep sting through my chest.

“Sit,” Lucy says, and I glance around, deciding to take a seat on the couch adjacent to them. A little distance suddenly seems safe. “Tell us about yourself.”

I blink, my eyes flitting between the three of them as they stare at me expectantly, and I feel a sudden sense of vertigo, a sharp pang of panic, like I’m standing on a hot stage and suddenly forgot my lines.

“I’m Margot,” I say at last, even though they know that already. “I’m an English major from the Outer Banks—”

“No,” Lucy says, interrupting me. “All of that is bullshit. That’s not you. Tell us about you.”

I can feel my heartbeat rise into my throat, my cheeks growing warm as my mind goes blank. The sad truth of it is, there’s not much else to say.

“Why’d you pick Rutledge?” Nicole asks, wide doll eyes and a gentle tone. Already, I can tell she’s the nicest.

I turn toward her, offering a smile. She’s giving me an opening, I know. A hand to grab because she can clearly see me flailing—but at the same time, I’m not going to talk about Eliza. Not yet.

“I had to get out of North Carolina,” I say at last, a watered-down version of the truth. “I just needed to go somewhere new.”

I think of home again and the way my parents had suggested I defer my acceptance after we lost Eliza, giving me some time to sort through it all. A year to deal with my grief. I had considered it for a while before realizing what their true intentions were: an attempt at making me change my mind and choose Duke instead. It’s like they knew, without her, that I’d default back to them, doing whatever they asked me to do. The future we had planned together gone forever, buried with her, like the friendship bracelet we made together back when we were eight.

I remember looking down at my own, all those colorful threads woven together on my wrist, and suddenly feeling so angry about them capitalizing on her death like that. Using it for their own purposes: to control me, use me, their straight-A daughter just another thing for them to brag about at the country club cocktail parties.

In a way, I think I came here to spite them. I think I wanted them to know that, even dead, I would still choose her first.

“Why?” Lucy asks now, leaning forward. “What happened that made you want to leave so bad?”

I look up at her and swallow, something swirling in those crystalline eyes. A challenge or a dare I’m suddenly sure I’ll fail.

“Jesus, Lucy, would you stop with the third degree?”

I look over at Sloane, her toned arms crossed tight in front of her chest. Her scowl is still there, but suddenly, it no longer feels directed at me.

“I’m getting to know her,” Lucy says, a feigned innocence dripping from her lips.

“You’re interrogating her,” Sloane snaps back. “Lay off.”

The room grows silent again, the four of us sitting in a beat of uncomfortable quiet. The arguing, the hostility: for a second, it concerns me, thinking that the three of them might not be as tight as I thought—but then, I realize it’s the opposite. Eliza and I used to bicker like this, too, throwing the kind of sharp jabs at each other only best friends could survive. Words can stick, wedging themselves fast into the tenderest parts of you—but when you have years of memories to thicken the skin, they aren’t quite as fatal. Instead, they bounce off, land with a whimper. Most of the time, anyway.

“Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the house,” Sloane says, standing up from the couch. “Then you can meet the boys.”

“The boys?” I ask.

“The boys next door,” Lucy says, pulling her legs beneath her. “They own the house—well, technically, the fraternity does. Kappa Nu. They use it for extra rooms when they need it, rent it out when they don’t.”

“That’s why it looks like this—” Sloane grunts.

“—and why it’s so cheap,” Nicole cuts in. “Our rent is, like, unheard of.”

“Trevor’s the president,” Lucy says. “Nicole gets defensive.”

“I’m not defensive,” she spits, definitely defensive. “I’m just saying we’re lucky to live here. Most people pay four times the amount to be on this side of town.”

Sloane and Lucy shoot each other a look, like they’ve had this conversation so many times before, and slowly, their blank stares break into smiles. Nicole looks annoyed for a second, being on the outside of this inside joke, but when Lucy and Sloane start to laugh, her shoulders slouch and she joins in, too.

“You’re whipped,” Lucy says, throwing a pillow in her direction.

“Trust me, I’m not.” Nicole laughs, tossing it back. “This is your fault, anyway. I told you I wanted to be single and you wouldn’t listen.”

“If you don’t want him, I’ll take him,” Lucy mocks, provocative but playful. “I’m not going to apologize for introducing you to the most beautiful boy on campus.”

The three of them are grinning now, devious little smiles that make me feel even more like an outsider as I watch this unspoken thing blooming between them, beautiful and mysterious and entirely theirs. It’s like we’re back on that lawn again, all four of us in the exact same roles: me, watching curiously from a distance. Them, oblivious to their surroundings and the strange effect they have on everyone else.

I continue to sit, not wanting to intrude, until Lucy throws the pillow at me next and I catch it quickly against my chest, my heart slamming hard against the fabric.

“Margot saw him this morning,” she says. “She knows what I mean.”

It feels like an unspoken invitation, an outstretched arm pulling me into whatever this thing is between them, and I hold the pillow tight between my fingers and watch as she winks, that little curl in her lip making my cheeks flush hot.

Making me think, for just a second, that I would take her hand and follow her anywhere.