Chapter 4: Room 14

"I'm not lost," Dante said. "I'm your third roommate."

His voice came out rougher than he meant it to.

The boy on the door bed shot upright, scattering a bag of crackers across the blanket.

"The free bed!" he said. "Finally! I have been telling everyone for two months that the free bed was cursed."

He climbed off the mattress, wiped his hand on his jeans and held it out.

"Daniel. That's Javier. We're both second-year medicine, but I'm the fun one."

"Dante Greco," Dante said, and shook the hand.

He had practiced the name in the car.

It still felt like someone else's name.

"Greco," Daniel repeated. "Like the cheese."

"Not like the cheese."

"Daniel," Javier said, from the window bed, in the mild tone of a man who had said it many times.

Javier had put his glasses back on.

He swung his legs down and stood, and he was exactly as tall as Dante remembered, an inch shorter than his own shoulder.

He held out his hand too.

"Hi. Javier."

Dante took it.

The palm was dry and a little rough from soap, and the grip was quick and polite.

It lasted two seconds.

It was the longest two seconds of Dante's life, and he could not feel his own fingers when Javier let go.

"You're a transfer?" Javier asked. "In second year?"

"I'm older than I look."

"You're older than you look," Daniel said, delighted. "How old do you look?"

"Daniel, the noodles."

"Right, yes, I was going to make noodles. Do you want noodles?" Daniel was already filling the kettle. "Everyone wants noodles."

Dante put his bag down on the door bed.

The sheets were still folded in the plastic from the laundry.

On the wall above it, someone had stuck a poster of a human heart, with the chambers labeled in a small, neat, familiar handwriting.

He looked away from the handwriting.

The room smelled of soap and pencil shavings and the sweet starch smell of Daniel's noodles.

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