It was a windy day at the Hartford bus station. Paige McCullers pulled the lapels of her jacket together and folded her arms over her chest. She blocked the instructions her father rattled out as she lined up to get her luggage on the bus; she heard them a thousand times before anyway.
"Paige, are you even listening to me?" her father asked. "You're spacing out." Her father, Nick, was already handing her luggage to the bus driver.
"Dad, it's nothing I haven't heard," she said. Nick gave her a look, so she rolled her eyes and deadpanned: "I'll call you when I get into New York to make sure I go to the correct train station, then I'll call you when I'm on the train to Pittsburgh, then I'll call you when I've gotten to Rosewood."
Her dad handed her some bills he pulled out of his wallet. "I put enough money on your cash card for meals, and here's some in case you need to get a cab if you miss the shuttle," he told her. He opened his arms. "Now, give your dad a hug before you get on the bus."
Paige wrapped her arms around her dad's neck. She was only a couple of inches shorter than him already, even if she was just in sneakers. "You'll miss me around at home?" she asked him.
Nick kissed the side of his daughter's head. "I won't miss the extra fifty bucks of groceries that comes with shopping for you," he said. He let go of her. "I'll tell your mother you said goodbye."
"Yeah, that would be nice. It sucks that she couldn't come today."
"Don't have too much fun in Rosewood. The two Ss, remember: school and swimming."
"Of course, Dad."
She had spent her life in Storrs. Her father was the men's water polo coach at the University of Connecticut, so she was around water from an early age. But Nick McCullers soon discovered that his daughter's real strength was in competitive swimming, not water polo. At her first swim meet at age seven, Paige ended up swimming better times than the best nine-year-olds. Even as a sophomore in high school, Paige hadn't lost her status as a swimming prodigy of sorts.
However, she wasn't particularly well-liked at her school, regardless of the trophies and the gold medals she won for them. When Paige was offered a full-ride sports scholarship to the Rosewood Preparatory Academy in Pennsylvania, she jumped at the chance to take it. To her parents, it meant a better-funded swim program where the swimmers are closely monitored academically. To Paige, it was a fresh start. Perhaps she would even have real friends this time around.
She disembarked from the train at the Pittsburgh station. The first thing she noticed was the weather wasn't too different from what it was like in Connecticut, but that was probably just because it was raining, just like when she left. After calling her dad to let him know that she had gotten there safely, she spotted a man holding up a sign saying "Rosewood Prep Shuttle". There were already a few people her age standing next to him, most of them with expensive-looking luggage.
Paige immediately felt self-conscious in her huge suitcase, her worn out gym bag and plain black backpack, all of which she bought from Target. She knew the typical prep school kid would be more well off than her, but she didn't expect that fact to be rubbed right in her face even before she set foot on campus.
The shuttle filled up quickly and Paige was having difficulty choosing a place to sit. Scanning the rows, she noticed one guy sitting alone. He had black hair that came down to his chin. Unlike the other guys there, who wore chinos or perfectly pressed bermudas with J Crew shirts, this guy was wearing frayed denim shorts and a navy blue t-shirt under a faded black hoodie. She decided to sit next to him.
"Hi," he said. His voice was gentle. "Are you new?"
"Yeah. I'm a junior though. Transfer student. My name's Paige," she replied.
"Caleb," the guy said. He held his hand out. Paige shook it and felt the roughness of his palm.
"Where are you from, Caleb?" she asked.
"All over the place, but most recently, Virginia," he replied. "What about you?"
"Connecticut."
"You play basketball?"
"That's an unfair assumption to make just because I'm from Connecticut."
Caleb nodded at the sweatshirt Paige was wearing under her jacket. "The Huskies? In Panthers territory? You're treading dangerous waters here," he joked. "Also, you're like, seven, seven-point-five feet tall, which is really tall for a girl."
Paige shook her head. "I'm five-feet-eight, you're stereotyping, but yes, I play basketball."
Caleb grinned. "I knew it! So... what brings you to Rosewood Prep?"
"Sports scholarship," Paige told him.
"For basketball?"
"Swimming."
"You're planning to do your two sports requirements in one season?" Paige nodded. Caleb pursed his lips. "Impressive. Well, I wrestle in the winter. Baseball in the spring."
Paige glanced at Caleb's calloused hands. "Batter?" she asked.
"Catcher, actually," he replied.
"I take it you're a Panther?"
Caleb shook his head. "My family is from Virginia, so I guess I'm a Cavalier."
Paige and Caleb debated over the quality of the competition between Big East and the Atlantic Coast. Paige adamantly insisted that the Big East had more raw talent, but Caleb was a staunch Atlantic Coast man.
Eventually, the bus entered Rosewood Prep's gates. A colonial-style building was at the end of the long driveway. Next to the bronze "Rosewood Preparatory Academy Reception" plaque was a small whiteboard announcing "Dorm registrations here!" in enthusiastic uppercase block letters. The shuttle parked in front of the sign and the driver opened the doors. Caleb and Paige gathered their belongings and got off the bus.
"Hey, Rivers!" a loud voice from behind them yelled out. "Got your tights ready for the season?"
Caleb turned around. "What's up, Kahn? I thought your daddy was going to drive you to Rosewood today," he said.
A tall, handsome guy with short dark hair and gray-blue eyes approached Caleb. "Well, he probably would have cancelled his trip if he had known you were going to be on the shuttle with me," he said snidely. "Or at least hired a car to take me to campus."
Caleb raised an eyebrow. "Afraid that you'll get your hands dirty? Break a nail?"
The guy smirked while taking another step forward. He was almost chest to chest with Caleb. "No, he just didn't want me to be in such a small space with someone of the incorrect breeding. The trashiness may be contagious," he said.
Paige noticed a shadow pass over Caleb's face, but she blinked and it was gone. What replaced it was a steely look of hatred. Caleb put a hand on the guy's shoulder, but instead of pushing him, he took a step backward himself. He took a deep breath. "I have no time for this," he said slowly. "Step off."
The guy's face twitched, then he let out a quick, but booming laugh. "Come on, Rivers," he taunted. He gave Paige a once over. "Is this your new girlfriend? You looked like you were getting cozy with her on the ride here."
Paige shifted uncomfortably as the guy stared her down. Then he sneered at her while slinging a holdall over his shoulder. He nodded at Caleb. "I'll catch you later, Rivers." He walked off, but not before sending a wink at Paige's direction.
Caleb seemed to shrug the encounter off, and grabbed a beat-up shell suitcase and a newer-looking duffel bag. "I got my stuff," he announced lamely.
She found her gym bag and suitcase out of the pile of luggage on the ground. "Shall we go and register?" she asked him.
Rosewood Prep's huge reception, which resembled a fancy country hotel's, hardly had any students in it for registration. Caleb noted the look of confusion on Paige's face, so he checked the time on his phone for her. "It's only noon," he explained. "Most kids have lunch with their parents then get driven here."
They got in line. Caleb was up at the counter first. "Rivers, Barnes Hall."
After Caleb got his key, he stepped aside to wait until Paige signed in. "McCullers, Thompson Hall," she told the lady behind the counter.
"You're new, aren't you, Miss McCullers?" the lady asked.
"Sure am," said Paige. The lady reached for a piece of paper under her desk and handed it to Paige, along with her room key. Paige looked at it. It was a map of the Rosewood Prep campus. "Thanks," she said.
The lady smiled. "Don't mention it. Have a nice day."
Caleb asked Paige to follow him through a side door. They walked along a tree-covered pathway which led to a quad surrounded by four three-story buildings in the similar colonial style. Caleb pointed the buildings out to Paige. "Howard and Wright are for freshmen and sophomore girls and guys, and Barnes and Thompson are for juniors and seniors. Looks straight out of a movie, doesn't it?"
A group of guys in chinos and cardigans brushed past them, talking in loud voices, like everyone else seemed to do at prep school. Paige stared at them. "Yeah, Caleb, a movie where teenage boys argue about whether shell cordovan is better than merino for their laptop cases," she said. "What the hell is shell cordovan?"
"Welcome to Rosewood," said Caleb with a laugh.
The dorm room at Thompson was bigger than Paige expected it to be. There were two double beds on either side of the room, two wardrobes, two chests of drawers, two desk and chairs and two bookshelves. One side of the room was already occupied, judging from the sheets on the bed and the books on the shelf, which meant that Paige got the bed closer to the window - something that she had hoped for. She liked her roommate already.
Paige opened her gym bag, in which she packed most of the stuff she needed for her room. She put her favourite mug on the desk, along with her laptop. She was putting sheets on her bed when a shorter, wavy-haired girl walked into the room, arguing with someone on her phone.
"Hanna, I know you want to hang out right now. I missed you over the summer too. I'm kind of busy right now though," she was saying. "Busy on sign in day? Well, yeah... I'm still working on some coding for that website I'm trying to build. It's continuation of work I did over the summer." she rolled her eyes. "Hanna! I'm sorry. I'm busy right now, okay? I'll text you later, promise. Okay. Bye." She hung up and shoved her phone in her pocket.
"Hey." Paige did a little sheepish wave. "You must be my roommate."
The girl stared at Paige, before speaking in a quieter voice than she had when she was on the phone. "Yeah, I must be. I'm Mona Vanderwaal. And you are?"
"Paige McCullers." Paige shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. "I'm new here," she added.
"I figured," said Mona. She opened the drawer on her nightstand to pull out a laptop, which she turned on. "I spent sophomore year at Howard Hall with the room to myself, so, sorry, I'm still getting used to this roommate thing again."
"Yeah, yeah, that's fine," said Paige, shaking her head. "Don't apologise. I'm an only child, so I've never had to share a room with anyone for long periods of time before. If you think you're rusty at this, don't worry - I'm a total beginner," she chuckled.
Mona didn't chuckle back, just stared at her. "You're kinda tall," she said.
"Okay, let's state the obvious. You're kinda loud on the phone," offered Paige.
"Sorry. That was a friend of mine, Hanna. She lives on the floor above."
"It sounds like she wanted you to hang out with her."
Mona shook her head. "No, she wanted to hang around while I unpack and organise her stuff for her." Her eyes widened as Paige's narrowed. "She's not being mean or a bully or anything! Hanna's just lazy. She prefers to talk rather than do things," she explained.
"She sounds like fun."
"Oh, she really is." She nodded enthusiastically and grinned. "She's a lot of fun. I really did miss her over the summer. I would go over to her room to hang out, but I know I'd end up unpacking for her, which is a waste of time, because she's a big girl and I really want to finish up some coding."
Paige sat down on her bed as she set her clock radio up on her nightstand. "Coding? You're into computers, huh?" she asked Mona.
Mona sat down on her own bed and pressed a couple of buttons her laptop. "Yeah, totally," she said. "I signed up for AP French this year, and just to enhance my learning I've decided to create an interactive web tool for my class to use."
"That's cool," said Paige. She picked up the campus map she had put down by her pillow and examined it. "Hey Mona, do you happen to know where the natatorium is?"
"Natatorium?"
"Yeah, you know, where the pools are?"
"Oh, we call that the Harris Aquatic Centre over here, after the alumnus who was an Olympic diver," said Mona. "It's probably labelled Harris on that map. It's a weird thing to do, seeing as the map is for newcomers." Mona's phone beeped. She pulled it out of her pocket, read the screen and gasped. She stood up and shut her laptop screen.
Paige's brow furrowed in concern. "Everything okay?" she asked.
"I gotta go see Hanna," said Mona. "It was nice meeting you!" She ran frantically out of the room.