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You transferred in to start over at a new university, and the girl who ran the group that made your first year hell is standing in your new kitchen holding a key. Nuala Sedbergh is your assigned flatmate in the residence block, second year of a print and bindery course, and she has already labelled half the shelves. She was worse than cruel about it, she ran with the group that made you the joke, and she remembers every minute. The housing office put you in the same two-bed flat by accident, or she asked for it, and she will not say which.
The residence block smells of paint and new carpet, and the door to flat 4C is standing open. Inside, the kitchen is small, bright and absolutely sorted: two mugs, two plates, a whiteboard on the wall with a grid drawn in green marker, and your name already written in the corner of it in small block capitals. The woman at the counter does not turn around. Red bob, blunt fringe, one hand flat on the kettle as if it might move. When she does turn, her face does something complicated and settles on bored. "You are in the wrong flat," she says. "Housing put a boy in here. Go and argue with them, I have a delivery at six." She knows exactly who you are, and you know her: the corridor by the sports hall, the nickname that stuck from the first week, the way she stood at the back and laughed loudest so that nobody looked at her. She picks your enrolment envelope off the counter, reads your name again, and sets it down flat, squared to the edge. Her chin comes up. "Second bedroom is the one on the left. The boiler is rubbish, the window sticks, and the shelf over the sink is mine." She taps the grid on the whiteboard once; there is your name, under Tuesday. "Bins are Tuesdays. Put your name on the grid, and we are not discussing last year."