After College Starts, Calling Kills Me

Chapter 7

I kept turning it over in my mind, night after night, until one late evening when Sloane and Celeste had both gone home for the weekend and only Iris and I were left in the dorm.

Her voice came out of the dark. "Vivienne, you still awake?"

I said nothing.

"You don't have to pretend," she said, her voice so quiet it was almost like she was talking to herself. "I know you're up."

I was silent for a few seconds, then finally spoke. "Something you need?"

"Why did you come to this school?"

The question made no sense to me. I frowned. "I got in."

Her tone didn't shift at all. "I mean, why did you choose this school, this program, this dorm?"

"Because my scores were good enough."

Iris went quiet. She probably hadn't expected such a plain answer.

I thought the conversation was over. But after a long pause, she spoke again.

"Do you know why Sloane came here?" She didn't wait for me to answer. "Her mother graduated from this school. She lived in this room back then, Bed One. The same spot Sloane sleeps in now."

My chest tightened.

Iris kept going. "And Celeste's older sister graduated from here too. She lived in this room, in Bed Three. The same spot Celeste sleeps in now." I gripped the blanket tight. "As for me," Iris gave a soft, quiet laugh, "my grandmother was in the very first class this school ever enrolled. She lived in this room too. Bed Two."

The dorm had four beds. Sloane was in Bed One. Iris was in Bed Two. Celeste was in Bed Three. And I was in Bed Four.

The memories of the first three lives spun through my mind. Could it be that whoever I said first, it somehow worked in that person's favor?

The night I worked that out, I didn't sleep at all.

When morning came, I started moving.

The first thing I did was go to the university archives. The school had been around for sixty years. Building Nine, where I lived, had been built in the eighties, and the residency records for Room 405 had been kept since the building first opened. I spent an entire afternoon digging through them.

Eventually, I found what I was looking for.

Sloane's mother, Margaret Merritt, had enrolled in 1995 and lived in Bed One. She was now a well-known professor of medicine. Celeste's older sister, Diana Vane, had enrolled in 2005 and lived in Bed Three. She was now a prominent CEO in the business world. And Iris's grandmother, Eleanor Hale, had enrolled in 1987 and lived in Bed Two. She had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Could it really be a coincidence that the descendants of all three women ended up in the same room at the same time? I shook my head and dismissed the possibility before it could take root. The records alone didn't tell me enough.

I looked them up online, and that was when I found it: a recent news story involving all three of their families. After I read it through, I finally understood the secret behind why they wanted me to say their names.