Chapter 5
865 Words
Sloane started making loud phone calls in the dorm on purpose.
"There's this girl in our room. It's so interesting—she refuses to take anyone's side. Don't you think that kind of person is scary?"
Celeste played along. "Not scary. Calculating."
Iris didn't say anything. She just smiled, not in agreement but as an observer, like someone watching a play whose ending she already knew.
A few days later, Sloane sent me a file. I opened it and found only nineteen survey responses.
"This is all of them?"
"That's all."
I said nothing and started writing.
Two days in, I asked Celeste for the interview material. She said she hadn't finished organizing it and told me to keep going. I asked Iris for the literature review. She said she was still working on it and told me to keep going.
With nothing else to work from, I wrote what I could from those nineteen responses.
On the fourth evening, Sloane announced to the room, "Vivienne, I heard the other groups are almost done. How much have you written?"
"About three thousand words."
"Only three thousand?" Her voice went up slightly. "Have you been slacking off?"
I said I hadn't.
Celeste leaned over the edge of the upper bunk and handed down a stack of papers. "My interview notes are ready. Here."
I flipped through them. Eight interview subjects, seven of whom were Celeste's friends and one of whom was Celeste herself.
Iris's literature review didn't arrive until the fifth evening. Half the references were from a general-purpose wiki.
I had no choice but to stay up through the night fixing it, and sent the finished report to the group chat the next morning.
The chat was silent for the entire morning.
At noon, Sloane sent a message.
Sloane: [Did you write this whole thing yourself?]
I said yes.
Sloane: [So how do we handle the credits?]
I replied: [Credits go by contribution. Whatever section you worked on, your name goes on that part.]
Celeste: [Ha.]
Iris said nothing.
That afternoon, Sloane posted a long message in the department-wide group chat under the heading: "Regarding a Certain Roommate Taking Sole Credit for Our Group Assignment."
She described in detail how I, as the person writing the report, had failed to communicate with the three of them, had made no revisions, and had simply submitted it on my own. She attached a screenshot of the chat, but only the second half of my message: [The report's done, take a look. Everything before it had been cut out. All three of them came out spotless.]
Three minutes later, Celeste reposted it: [Backing our group leader.]
Five minutes after that, Iris reposted it: [Agreed.]
I read through it all, set my phone on the desk, and looked around the room. All three were there. Sloane was on her phone, a faint smile at the corner of her mouth. Celeste had a sheet mask on, her expression unreadable. Iris was reading and turned a page.
Everything as usual.
But I knew I wasn't going to survive the semester.
Not because I hadn't been careful enough. Because I had been wrong from the start.
I thought that refusing to say anyone's name would keep me alive. But in this dorm, refusing to choose was itself a choice. It meant choosing to be against everyone.
And what was worse was that they had never stopped pushing.
Sloane's methods were everyday and inescapable. Every morning, the moment I opened my eyes, she was standing by my bed, waiting for me to say her name. When it was lunch in the dining hall, Sloane always said, "Vivienne, did you forget what my name was?" Not a command, not a threat. Just that warm, pleasant smile that left no opening for a fight.
Celeste's methods were transactional. "Vivienne, pick up my package and I'll buy you milk tea if you say my name." "Vivienne, say my name and I'll help you with this problem." "Vivienne, throw my laundry in with yours and I'll give you ten dollars if you say my name." Every time, the same structure: say my name and you get something. Don't say it and you lose out.
Iris's methods were the hardest to guard against. She didn't demand anything, didn't offer anything. She simply waited. Every night, in the last minute before the lights went out, she would lift her head and look at me in silence. No words. She was waiting for me to say her name on my own.
In that stillness, the first three lives came back to me.
In the first life, I said Sloane's name, and Celeste killed me. In the second life, I said Celeste's name, and Sloane killed me. In the third life, I said Iris's name, and all three of them moved against me. Or rather, two of them poisoned me while Iris watched, and I was the one who died.
In this life, I said no one's name, and they took turns finding new ways to make me say it.
Saying a name meant death. Saying nothing also meant death.
If there was no way out, then I was done choosing.
- Writer
