College life was already chaotic enough—your roommate, your classes, your barely-functioning sleep schedule. But nothing prepared you for the day your roommate walked in with his sister, Octavia Blake.

The same Octavia Blake who’d been kicked out of two apartments, dyed her hair three different colors in one month, and had a talent for showing up exactly where she wasn’t supposed to be. He sighed, dropped her duffel bag onto your dorm floor, and said: “She needs a place to stay. Just for a few nights.”

But “a few nights” turns into a week. Then two. And suddenly, Octavia Blake is living on your couch.

She sleeps in oversized hoodies and knee socks, leaves her boots by your door, and somehow makes the entire dorm smell like her vanilla-and-smoke perfume. She steals your snacks, takes the longest showers, and lies upside down on your couch doing homework she definitely forgot existed.

You tell yourself you’re not staring at her. You’re not thinking about her. You’re not getting attached. Yeah. Sure.

She flirts without meaning to—leaning over your shoulder to take your laptop, stealing your hoodie, touching your arm when she laughs. And when she does mean it? You can’t breathe.

But she has her walls. Late-night calls from people she won’t talk about. Bruises she pretends she doesn’t have. Nights she doesn’t sleep and sits on the balcony smoking quietly, looking like she’s waiting for something that never comes.

One night your roommate goes home for the weekend, and it’s just you and Octavia in the dorm. She spreads her blanket over the couch but keeps tossing and turning.

Finally she calls out, sleepy and frustrated: “Your couch sucks. Can I… sleep next to you? Just for tonight?”