MY ROOMMATE STOLE MY LUCK

The stone pendant around my neck suddenly spoke. "Don't go." My roommate, Rosanne, had twisted her ankle and asked me to pick up her package, and I was about to say yes.

The pendant told me that on the way there a drunk guy with bleachedblond hair would hit me with his electric moped and break my leg.

After that he would spread rumors about me, and in the end I would drop out, depressed. Worse than that: this was supposed to be Rosanne's fate.

I went rigid where I stood, and cold sweat broke out across my back in an instant.

Rosanne was still in bed, pushing me for an answer. "Babe, you going or not?" I turned her down before I could think about it. "No." Chapter 1 Rosanne's face went stiff for a second, then smoothed out, and she put on a pitiful voice. "Nessa, I really do need this package right away.

Just make the one trip for me." "If I hadn't twisted my ankle I'd never bother you with it." I looked at her and, for the first time, didn't answer. "What's so urgent?

Can't you get it tomorrow?" She froze. She probably hadn't expected me to say no. After all, since freshman year I had given her everything I had.

I knew money was tight at her house, so for years I'd been loading up her meal card. Skincare, new clothes, good snacks — she always got half.

I thought of her as my best friend, and she always said I was the closest person to her in college. And now— The pendant had told me she hadn't twisted her ankle at all.

She only wanted me out the door, so the moped would hit me instead of her.

I stared at the face I'd been looking at for two years, and it was suddenly strange, and frightening. "What exactly is this package?" I asked again. "It has to be today?" She didn't answer that.

Her face darkened instead, and her voice came out with an edge. "What's that supposed to mean? It's one small favor.

If you don't want to, fine, but do you have to interrogate me?" "I said it's not a good time." I leaned back in my chair and didn't give an inch. "If it's urgent, post in the errand group chat.

Five dollars a run." She bit her lip.

Her eyes went half red at the rims. "It's not like you don't know what things are like for my family." "You have no idea what five dollars means to me.

Someone who spends money the way you do never would." I laughed once. "Is it my fault your family doesn't have money?" Her eyes went wide. "I've bought you meals, given you things, bought your skincare.

Have I ever once kept score?" I looked her in the eye and put away every soft feeling I had left for her. "I don't think I've done a single thing wrong by you.

Do you?" Rosanne went paper white. Her lips shook and nothing came out. She cared about appearances more than anything, and I had never said any of this in front of other people.

Today I said all of it. On the two beds across the room, Willa and Amara couldn't sit still anymore. Both of them turned to me, frowning.

Willa was the first to object. "Vanessa, that's way too harsh. Aren't you two supposed to be closest?" Amara backed her up. "It's picking up a package.

Does it have to turn into this?" "Rosie twisted her ankle. It's not like you didn't see it." The two of them looked at Rosanne with nothing but sympathy.

When they looked at me, it was all accusation. My mouth pulled to one side.

I thought about how every time I came back from off campus I'd pick up boba and fruit, and how Rosanne was always so eager to take the bags, saying she'd carry them up for me.

By the time I parked and got upstairs, everything had already been divided up.

Chapter 2 Willa and Amara would throw their arms around Rosanne and cheer, going, "Thank you, Rosie," "I knew Rosie was the best." I paid for it. She got the credit.

Beautiful. "If you feel that bad for her," I said, "you go." Willa flushed at that, threw off her blanket, and got out of bed. "Fine, I'll go." "Rosie, don't move.

I'll go get it right now." Rosanne panicked. "Will, don't—" "It's fine!" Willa didn't look back. The door slammed behind her. Amara chimed in. "Rosie, don't feel bad about it.

Classmates help each other out, that's just how it is." Every word of it was aimed at me.

Rosanne pushed out a smile, but underneath it was something dark and venomous, the look of a plan coming apart. It made my chest tighten. Rosanne didn't seem happy.

But Willa had gone in her place. She had someone to take the disaster for her.

So why was she angry? "Because the one she wants is you." The pendant again. "Of everyone in this room, you have the best family and the most luck.

Rosanne can steal the luck of anyone who takes a disaster in her place." "As long as you keep taking her disasters, she can steal your luck, replace you, and live the smooth life that was meant to be yours." "Willa's family is ordinary.

Between the two of you, Rosanne would rather have yours." Cold came up from the soles of my feet. It froze me an inch at a time.

No wonder she had been so insistent that it be me. "Is there a way to break it?" I was about to press again when something happened to Willa.

The RA brought Willa back, holding her up. Her left leg was in a thick cast and a patch of skin was scraped off her face.

Exactly what the pendant had said: the bleachedblond guy's moped had hit her. The difference was in the injury. On me it would have been surgery, a plate, a month of recovery.

On Willa it came out as a hairline fracture.

She spent two days in the hospital and then insisted on coming back, saying one day's bill was terrifying and there was no way she could cover her share of it.

But being back made everything harder. The room was a fourperson suite, beds lofted with the desks underneath.

With one leg in a cast she couldn't get up or down, and getting into the bathroom took someone holding on to her.

She and I had fought right before she went for that package, so of course she wasn't going to ask me. Which left Rosanne and Amara.

Amara had a full load of classes during the day and her workstudy shift at night, so most of it fell to Rosanne.

But Rosanne was barely over five feet, and Willa was fiveeight and built like an athlete. Holding her up was more than Rosanne could handle.

One time Amara was out, and Rosanne was walking Willa toward the bathroom. Halfway there, Rosanne's hand slipped. Thud. They both went down on the floor.

Willa's cast leg knocked into a desk leg. She hissed at the pain and couldn't keep it in. "How are you this careless?" Rosanne had run out of patience long before this.

She'd been holding it all in, and now it blew. "Whose fault is it that you need me to hold you up every single day?" "Can't you ask her?" She pointed at me.

Willa stared for a second, and then her own temper came up. "I got hurt picking up your package.

Isn't taking care of me the least you could do?" "I didn't tell you to go," Rosanne said, arms crossed, her voice flat. "From start to finish, I wanted Vanessa to get it.

You're the one who jumped in where you weren't needed." "Besides, didn't that bleachedblond guy pay you a few thousand dollars? You order me around all day.

How come I don't get half of it?" Willa couldn't take it in. She stared at Rosanne, disbelief all over her face.

Chapter 3 All that time living together, she had thought Rosanne was kind and warm, gentle, generous.

It had never occurred to her that she could be this cold, this calculating. "You don't have any responsibility here?" Willa was furious.

She pushed herself up on the desk. "Your precious package was one bottle of sunscreen. You told me you needed it right away.

That's the only reason I went." "What's wrong with sunscreen?" Rosanne said, mouth twisting. "Whose fault is it that you believed me?" That was it for Willa.

One leg was hurt, but she was a good deal bigger than Rosanne, and by rights she could have held her down with one hand. She lunged for Rosanne's arm to drag her back.

Rosanne pushed her off without even trying, and Willa staggered backward and landed on the floor.

Willa sat there, shocked and furious. "You… that's not possible…" "When my leg is healed, I'm not letting this go." She put it down to the injury, to having no strength in her.

But I knew. Her luck had already been drained into Rosanne. She had taken the disaster meant for Rosanne, and the luck and the strength it cost her had gone straight into Rosanne.

The pendant's voice came into my head. "What Willa has is nowhere near enough for her." "What she wants, and has wanted from the beginning, is your whole life." I clenched my fists, furious.

The whole scene ended with Rosanne storming out of the room. With her leg, Willa couldn't even follow her out to have it out with her. She had to swallow it.

And the more she thought about it, the more unfair it felt, the less she could let it go.

That night she posted on the campus board under her own name. [Calling someone out, and I'm using my real name: my roommate, H., lied to get me to pick up a package for her.

I got hit by a moped because of it. Afterward she refused to take care of me and shoved me to the floor.] [I have never met anyone this ungrateful in my life.] The post blew up.

Willa getting hit had already been big news on campus, and now more people poured in for the popcorn. The comments were onesided. Everyone went after Rosanne.

Rosanne saw it, and that same night she posted back. [Not everything she's saying is true.] [She insisted on going in my place.

After she got hurt she put all of it on me, and the first thing out of her mouth was that I owed her $5,000.] [Everyone knows what my family situation is.

I can't produce that kind of money, so now she's spreading this around.

Who's bullying who here?] Attached was a blurry screenshot of a text thread, cropped down to one line of Willa's: [You're responsible for this.] The wind changed immediately. "Willa's always been the type who pushes people around.

She probably really is shaking Rosanne down." "Rosanne really does have it rough. No money at home and her roommates on her." "It takes two.

Neither one of them is any good." In the room, the two of them were done pretending. Willa lay in bed calling Rosanne shameless.

Rosanne put in her earbuds, scrolled videos, pretended not to hear.

Amara worked on both of them, got nowhere with either, and then came to work on me. "Nessie, help me talk to them!

They were friends before all this!" I turned her down fast. "Don't 'Nessie' me.

A few days ago you were all lined up telling me I was coldblooded and heartless." "I'm staying out of whatever's going on with you and your best friends." Rosanne and I went cold with each other.

She didn't speak to me, and I was glad for the quiet. But she was well liked, and she used it.

Behind my back she'd get together with other girls, heads down, murmuring, glancing over at me every so often.

It was all about my "temper," how "highmaintenance" I was, my "richgirl act." I couldn't be bothered.

Ever since Willa got hurt, the room had been World War Three every single day. Chapter 4 I was sick of it, and more than that, I was afraid of what Rosanne still had planned for me.

That night I called my parents and told them I wanted to move out. I found a place quickly.

I put in the housing release request, and the housing office approved it without any trouble. I didn't mention it to anyone. I just started packing.

And at the very bottom of the closet I turned something up. A doll. Crudely made. Crooked, uneven stitching.

And the eyes, solid black all the way through, with something grim and wrong about them I couldn't name. I looked at those two black eyes, and a chill crawled up my back.

I didn't remember buying it, and I didn't remember anyone giving it to me.

I was turning it over looking for a tag when the pendant spoke. "You won't find one." "Rosanne made that doll herself.

She put it in the bottom of your closet while you were out of the room." "She needs a medium like that to keep drawing your luck." "The more you handle it, the easier it is for the doll to draw your luck." My hand jerked and I almost threw the thing across the room.

Right then the door opened. Rosanne walked in, saw the doll in my hand, and her face changed.

She forgot we weren't speaking and crossed the room in a few strides, the words coming out in a rush. "Nessie, what are you doing digging that out?" I looked up. "Is this yours?

I've never seen it before." Her eyes went everywhere but mine, and she stumbled over it. "It's— it's something I gave you, a long time ago…" "It's probably not cute enough, so you shoved it in the bottom of the closet and forgot…" I knew perfectly well she was making it up, and turning it back on me while she did.

I still didn't call her on it. But Willa heard it from her bed and gave a cold laugh. "Ha. A doll that ugly.

Only somebody as snaky as you would hand that over as a gift." "If you ask me, throwing it in the trash would be an insult to the trash." Something venomous went through Rosanne's eyes and was gone.

She ignored Willa and kept her eyes on me, and they reddened on command. "Nessie, you're not going to believe her too, are you?" "She's been running her mouth about you behind your back this whole time.

Me fighting with her should make you happy." Willa rolled her eyes, furious. "Bullshit!" "You're the one who told us Vanessa looked down on you, that she treated you like her trash can.

You want to say you never said it?" Amara put her phone down too, and for once she wasn't playing peacemaker. "Willie's right." "If you hadn't been talking about Vanessa to us all the time, would we have been that unfair to her?" Caught from both sides, Rosanne bit her lip white.

But she still didn't take either of them on. She just looked at me with those pitiful eyes, her voice soft and wounded. "Nessie, you have to believe me." "You're my best friend.

You're all I have now." Of course I was. After all, the little bit of luck the others had wasn't going to fill her up.

I looked at that innocent face and smiled a little. "Of course I believe you." Rosanne brightened, and her whole body loosened.

She thought I was still the same stupid, easy Vanessa, the one who would believe her and make room for her no matter what.

What she didn't know: While Willa was going at her, the pendant had said one more thing to me. "She is careful, and she has been at this a long time.

There is no chance this is the only doll near you." My stomach dropped. It was right. She had been to my house plenty of times. She had stayed the night more than a few.

What if she had planted one of those cursed things in my house too? Until I had all of it accounted for, I couldn't afford to break with her. Chapter 5