Amy Cahill arrived at Attleboro University with a duffle bag, just enough money to buy her textbooks, and the worst move-in helpers she could imagine.

Not that she didn't love her little brother Dan, and not that it wasn't great to see their old au pair, Nellie Gomez. It was just that Dan was not the first impression she wanted to be making on her future classmates, and that even though Amy was the one going off to college, Nellie had refused to let her touch the playlist, which meant Amy had just sat through two hours of early 2000s punk-rock.

"Paramore is an essential part of American culture," Nellie was known to insist very adamantly, the phrase accompanied by her jagged dyed hair and dark makeup.

"You're such a millennial," Dan was fond of responding, which wasn't even true, but which Nellie never refuted because one of her deepest regrets was missing the nineties, for some reason.

Amy could understand the desire to return to a more vintage aesthetic- it wasn't like she was caught up on any modern trends herself (t-shirts and jeans would stand the test of time, she always said, and it was only mostly an excuse). She just didn't really get why Nellie was so caught up on that decade, specifically.

"Alright, kiddos!" Nellie announced. "We're here!"

When Amy was fourteen and Dan was eleven, Nellie had become the last in a long string of au pairs hired by their Aunt Beatrice to take care of them so she didn't have to. Amy had detested being called 'kiddo', because she'd been fourteen, but she'd grown to accept it, and then miss it once Amy and Dan got 'too old' for an au pair and Nellie had been summarily fired.

She'd made sure to stay in touch, which was way more than any of their other au pairs had ever done- but Nellie had been with them the longest. Now that Amy was eighteen and Aunt Beatrice was even less interested in being involved with her life than before, Nellie was the one dropping her off at college, and Nellie would be the one making sure Dan's life didn't crash and burn completely once she was gone.

"Thanks for driving, Nellie," she made sure to say.

"Yeah, no problem, kiddo," Nellie shrugged, even with all the complaining she'd done when Amy had told her Attleboro was two hours away from Boston. "When I come pick you up for fall break, it'll be a girls-only trip, 'kay?"

"Says who?" Dan protested, grabbing her purse- the lightest item- so he wouldn't have to carry the duffel bag.

"Says your attendance record, dude." Nellie took the duffel before she could and slung it over her shoulder, leaving Amy with her backpack. The same one from high school- it still worked fine, so she hadn't bothered buying a new one. "Don't think you'll get away with skipping school just 'cause Amy's not there to bug you about it."

"You used to be cool," Dan sighed with all the melancholy his fifteen-year old self possessed, which was a lot. "Hey, nice dorm! What floor are you on?"

Amy had spent plenty of time browsing for pictures online, but she'd never actually seen the college, or her dorm building, in person. She'd known it was one of the nicer ones, but as she understood it, this was much nicer than the average college dorm.

"I'm in 212," she recalled.

"Honestly, it's a good thing you pack light," Nellie commented as they made their way inside. "Only one trip- though I guess this place has an elevator."

The dorm lobby was spacious and well-light, with clean tiled floors- "Trust me, it won't look this clean in a week or two," Nellie warned- and a collection of pool tables off to one side. Amy didn't know the first thing about pool, so she was more interested in what she knew lay behind one of the side doors- a beautiful library (if the pictures were to be believed) that she could imagine herself holing up in to study on a cold day. Or any day, really. Amy had always felt most at home in a library.

Right now, though, she just had to get up to her room. There was a line stretching out from a folding table set-up, manned by two students with matching orientation t-shirts. A big sign told them they had to check in to get into their rooms.

"Good thing we got here early!" Nellie said cheerfully as they went to stand at the end of the line, which wasn't very long yet. "I hate waiting in line."

"I could've used a few more hours of sleep," Dan grumbled. School hadn't started yet for him, so he was still on his summer sleep schedule- it was ten in the morning, so on any other day, he would still be sleeping.

"School starts in a week, Dan-o," Nellie reminded him. "You're gonna have to get used to it. I can't believe I used to get up at six in the morning for high school."

"I can't believe it, either." Amy had never seen Nellie awake before eight.

There was a great commotion at the front of the line as the family checking in finished up. There were five of them- a giant man and a woman nearly as giant who must have been the parents of the burly boy in the Attleboro football jersey, accompanied by identical girls around Dan's age and twice his size. The man clapped once, shouted, "About-face!", and the entire family turned as one and ran in formation towards the stairs.

"O-kay," Dan snickered.

"How is he in the same program as you?" Nellie wondered. The only reason Amy as a first year was getting such a nice dorm was because she had been accepted into Attleboro's top honors program. They all stayed in a nice dorm, and got extra opportunities, and it came with a scholarship.

"Maybe he has hidden depths," Dan suggested, still laughing.

"Don't be mean," she protested. Though she did have to agree- she'd certainly never met a smart football player through her four years in high school. "The Madrigal program is the most diverse of its kind in the country, accepting students gifted in areas ranging from academics to arts to athletics-"

"Yeah, fascinating." Dan yawned, which was annoying, but he did already know all of this, probably even better than Amy did just on account of his photographic memory. Sure, he didn't care, but she knew if she read him something straight from a webpage, he would automatically memorize it whether he wanted to or not.

Eventually, they reached the table, and Amy held out her phone to show them her ID. She had debated long and hard the merits of having a physical ID versus having it on her phone, and both Dan and Nellie had convinced her to keep it on her phone- one less thing she had to worry about losing.

"Are you excited for your time at Attleboro?" the girl behind the desk asked cheerfully.

"Y-y-yeah," she gulped. She winced internally- she had had a very bad stutter for most of her life, and while she was fine around Dan and Nellie, and occasionally with acquaintances at school, the stress of a new environment was clearly making it worse.

"Social anxiety," the school's counselor had prescribed. "I would recommend medication, or a therapist."

"You're just shy," her Aunt Beatrice had snapped when she brought it up. "You'll get over yourself eventually."

"Have a good day!" the girl chirped, and Nellie and Dan shifted her off to the side.

"Dude, you totally wigged out," Dan told her.

"Leave her alone," sighed Nellie. "Come on, Ames, you'll probably never see either of those people again, it's a big campus. Let's go check out your dorm."

Nellie was so good at that- just taking what Amy thought of as a huge problem and making it seem like no big deal. Amy couldn't imagine just thinking like that naturally.

To her relief, her dorm was empty when they got there- her roommate hadn't arrived yet. The prospect of having a roommate was one of the things that scared Amy the most about college. What if she hated her? What if she was really popular, and she thought Amy was a total loser?

Nellie had assured her that people didn't care so much about that stuff in college- but Amy's roommate would be coming in directly from high school, just like her, so she might not have gotten the memo yet. And while Amy had received her contact information, she hadn't reached out yet, and neither had the other girl. "She could just be shy like you, and waiting for you to reach out," Nellie had pointed out. "And then you two'll get along great."

"Or she already hates me, and she doesn't care at all," Amy had countered.

"Want me to look her up on Instagram to see what she's about?"

"No, that's weird!"

Now, Amy was kind of wishing she'd let Nellie do a bit of light stalking, because she knew nothing about her roommate- she didn't even remember her name! Would she think she was rude? What if she got there, and she knew Amy's name but Amy didn't remember hers?

"Woah," Dan commented, "that's a lot of books."

"Is that why that bag was so heavy?"

Amy pushed them both away and started stacking the books up on the small dorm-provided bookshelf. There was only one in the room, but she figured she could just take the bottom shelf and let her roommate at the rest of them- it wasn't like she had anything to put on the other shelves.

"We're gonna need to go shopping or something," Nellie decided. "You don't even have a laundry basket."

Amy's face burned. "I- didn't get the chance before school started."

"Well, there's a Target down the street. You can get everything you need there. Maybe even some decorations."

"No, no, we'll stick with the essentials. I'm saving up for textbooks."

Unfortunately, she knew what Nellie was going to say before she said it. "Don't sweat it, kiddo. I'm getting paid the big bucks now, remember?"

Yes, Amy did remember- Nellie mentioned and showed off her newfound extra money regularly ever since she'd landed a job at a top, five-star restaurant in Boston. "Follow your dreams, kids," Nellie had told them three months after starting, "and life will reward you with a sweet new apartment!"

"Can you get me something, too?" Dan asked eagerly. Dan had very little in terms of savings, because he was always spending any money he got on random stuff he didn't need yet claimed he did, every time. And he didn't even have a job.

"One thing, under ten bucks, and don't try to stretch it," Nellie said sternly. "Alright, losers. Let's go shopping!"

—-

Amy's roommate still hadn't arrived by the time they got back. That was probably a good thing- Dan and Nellie were singing a song by whatever god-awful band they were currently bonding over when they got up to the room, which would've been incredibly embarrassing if anyone else had been there.

Nellie agreed, but for very different reasons. "Okay, good news- your roommate isn't here, which means you get to pick the bed! And we can move any furniture we need around before she gets here."

"Isn't that kind of rude?"

"She'll never know," Dan shrugged, plopping down on one of the beds.

"Get your shoes off!" she snapped.

"Chill, Ames. I'm trying to figure out which one is softer." He got up and sat down on the other one. "Hm. This one squeaks. I'd take that one."

"But if she sleeps there, she'll get the sun in her eyes every morning, since east is over there," Nellie pointed out, angling herself to look out the window. "Unless we move it…."

Amy, who had just endured a shopping trip with the two of them, was immediately overwhelmed. Moving in involved way more decisions than she'd expected- why did it matter which bed she took? Couldn't she just let her roommate decide?

But what if she didn't get here until much later? Then she would end up sitting around, waiting to unpack, for hours, and then her roommate would wonder why the hell she'd waited in the first place and think she was weird and transfer out to sleep somewhere else and then she'd be the only person on the whole floor without a roommate-

"-what do you think, Amy?"

She blinked. "What?"

"If we move the beds this way-" Nellie waved her hands around in an extremely vague and unhelpful way- "and the desks over there, then you can take that one. I think that'll be the best spot."

"Sure," she sighed. She didn't really want to move the beds- at this point, she just wanted to lie down and maybe take a nap- but she also didn't have the energy to argue back, because if she did, Nellie would want to know why, and she probably wouldn't take 'well, I don't feel like it' as an answer.

Of course, Dan didn't help them move anything at all- actually, he got in the way more than he helped- but she and Nellie managed to get everything in the right place, and she had to admit that they'd been right. The room did look better this way, and it did put her in the best spot to sleep.

She didn't get how Dan and Nellie could just- do things like that. A big decision like how to arrange the furniture in her room would normally take her about two hours of careful planning and measuring, and even then, it would probably end up all messed up. But she didn't have two hours now, and it wasn't like she'd been given an exact floor plan beforehand.

She continued to spiral as Dan got started on putting sheets on the bed (Nellie had made him do it, to prove to her that he knew how). She hadn't even thought to buy sheets beforehand. She'd been so wrapped up with trying to save money that she'd forgotten that she would need essential things like detergent and bedsheets. How was she supposed to survive in college? How was she supposed to survive in life? Maybe she should just give up and hide in a library forever. That was usually her solution to feeling stressed: go right to her comfort place.

Then, the worst thing that could have happened, happened. There was a bit of shuffling and a thud outside of her door, and then it opened, and someone walked in.

Her roommate looked like a better version of herself. They were both pale, but Amy was bordering on sickly while this girl looked well-tanned and freckled. Both of them had red hair, but where Amy's was an auburn almost-brown that she barely brushed and threw up in a ponytail each morning, her roommate's was vibrant and clearly well-taken care of. She was taller. She was thinner. She was more athletic. She was better dressed. She was clearly better prepared, judging by the two giant suitcases behind her.

"Oh, hi!" Nellie jumped in, because Amy was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room and hadn't moved or said anything at all, like a total weirdo. "I'm Nellie."

"Okay," the other girl said flatly. Her eyes flicked, looking Nellie up and down, and whatever she saw, she clearly didn't like it.

This snapped Amy out of it. "A-a-and I'm A-Amy," she forced out.

"Sinead."

"Gesundheit," Dan responded.

Amy felt her entire face turn red. "Dan!"

"So I guess this is my bed?" Sinead asked, ignoring her brother completely except for a quick, disgust-filled glance.

"Y-y-yeah."

"Great." She couldn't tell if the other girl was being sarcastic or not. She didn't add anything else as she dragged the first suitcase in.

"Here, let us help with-"

"No, thank you," Sinead huffed, cutting Nellie off.

"Okay," Nellie said in the exact same tone Sinead had earlier. "Well, we were about to go grab lunch- we'll get out of your way."

"Awesome."

The three of them had never left a room faster, and the second the door closed, Nellie only had one thing to say:

"What a bitch!"

"Nellie, keep your voice down!" she hissed. "Do you think she hates me? Was it something I did? Ooh, I knew we shouldn't have brought Dan!"

"Hey!"

"Nah, it's nothing you did, kiddo- though I don't think Dan helped. Maybe she's just not too great around new people," Nellie suggested, toning down her stance so as to not freak Amy out more (Amy was very familiar with Nellie's tactics). "Or she's just a skank. If it gets really bad, you can just switch rooms."

Amy didn't see how she could do that. She knew she would feel awful if her roommate switched rooms to get away from her. But maybe Sinead didn't care.

Nellie brought them out to eat, proclaimed the food to be 'good but not better than mine, obviously'- Amy had to agree, having tasted Nellie's cooking- and dropped her off outside her dorm an hour later.

"Alright, kiddo, this is where we leave you," Nellie said, and Amy immediately started tearing up. "You're gonna be totally fine- even if you don't click with anyone the first week or so, join a club, find something you're interested in, you'll find your people, alright?"

"Yeah. I bet there'll be plenty of nerds here," Dan added unhelpfully.

"I'm gonna give you this-" Amy immediately started trying to push Nellie's hand away when she pulled out a handful of bills, but Nellie shoved it at her even more aggressively- "so you can treat yourself to a non-college meal every now and then. I know you'll be going through withdrawal after eating my food all summer. And this way, you don't have to worry if your friends all want to go out."

"But I can't-"

"Kiddo, I'm giving you the money. Take it." Nellie's voice made no room for argument, and she'd already tucked the money into Amy's pocket. Amy knew she would have to take it, because Nellie tended to get what she wanted, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"I can't wait to go to college," Dan said dreamily.

"You'll have to graduate high school first," she reminded him. Not that Dan was really dumb- he was actually smarter than her sometimes- but he didn't have the same motivation for school as she did. She worried a bit about her brother- he didn't do any clubs (Amy had shoved as many onto her schedule as possible for her resume), he didn't have many- or any- friends, he didn't really pay attention in class.

"Hey, I'll whip him into shape," Nellie winked. Three years ago, that might not have made her feel much better- Nellie hadn't exactly been what she would call a 'responsible adult figure'. Now, though, it gave her some reassurance.

"Thanks, Nellie. And thanks for helping me move in."

"No problem, kiddo. I'll see you in October for fall break, and you'd better call us, okay?"

"I will," she promised. "And say hi to Sammy for me." Sammy was the only long-term boyfriend Nellie had ever had, which meant he was the only one she and Dan had ever been introduced to. He practically lived at her apartment now.

She hugged Nellie goodbye, and then, to her surprise, Dan stepped forward to hug her, too. "Don't forget to have fun every now and then, okay?"

"Ha, ha," she huffed. "Stay out of trouble and listen to Nellie, okay?"

"And moment ruined," he groaned, breaking away. "See you in a month!" He dove into the car before she could say anything else.

"Don't worry, we'll make it about a block away before we both start bawling," Nellie joked. "But he's right- go have some fun tonight, okay? It's orientation- you're literally supposed to not worry about school right now."

"I'll do my best." A much weaker promise, but she really would try her best. Her best just wasn't very good.

"That's all I want," Nellie assured her, hugging her one more time before heading over to start the car. "Alright, Dan. What are we listening to?"

Amy watched as Nellie fiddled with her miraculously still-working iPod, and even stayed to listen to the music fade as they drove away. Eventually, though, it started to get weird standing alone outside her dorm, and it started to get cold- so she yawned once and then headed inside, ready to start her new life.