Three days later, I remain convinced that my parents have completely lost their minds.
The proof is right in front of me in the form of a red brick building by the harbor, while I try to pull a box that's way too heavy out of the trunk. My mother insists this is an opportunity for growth. My father insists it's the best possible solution. I insist that neither of them would be saying any of this if they were the ones about to live with Charlie Vence.
"Don't make that face," my mom says.
"What face?"
"That one."
"This is just my normal face."
"Danni."
"Mom."
My dad decides to step in before we can keep going. "It's only for a year."
"Most prison sentences have an end date, and that doesn't make them any more attractive."
My mother closes her eyes. "You're going to be fine."
"That is exactly what people say right before someone is definitely not fine."
"Danni."
"Sorry. I'm trying to be optimistic. It's not working out for me."
The building's front door opens before anyone can respond. Charlie appears in the entrance, which is deeply inconvenient for my personal narrative because the villains in a situation like this are supposed to look more menacing.
Instead, Charlie just looks like Charlie. She's wearing dark trousers, a cream-colored sweater, and her hair is pulled back into a low ponytail. She wears a calm, professional, perfectly serene expression, as if moving in with her dead sister's teenage best friend were a completely normal activity for a random Tuesday.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi."
"Do you guys need any help?"
"Please," my mother answers before I can.
Charlie takes the heaviest box without the slightest effort. That annoys me too.
We enter the building and take the elevator up. Nobody talks much during the ride. My mom tries to fill the silences with comments about the weather, my dad asks something about parking, and Charlie replies politely. I stare at the floor indicator buttons as if I'm attending my own execution.
When the doors finally slide open, I step out behind everyone and brace myself to find exactly what I've been imagining for the past three days: white walls, white furniture, white decor. An apartment so pristine and sterile that you probably need medical clearance just to breathe inside it.
What I find is completely different.
The first surprise is the dark hardwood floors. The second is the rugs. The third is the walls covered in artwork.
I stop dead in my tracks. The place looks like something out of a design magazine, but not one of those minimalist magazines where everything looks like a wildly expensive waiting room. There's color everywhere: framed photographs, books, small sculptures, and curious trinkets arranged on bookshelves. An old map hangs next to an abstract painting, and there's a strange lamp that looks more like a piece of art than a light fixture.
Everything fits together somehow. As if someone had hired a professional designer and then actually allowed them to have a personality.
I hate to admit it, but I like it. A lot. Which is irritating, because Charlie seems to notice too.
"Your room is at the end of the hall," she says with a small smile.
I decide not to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging that I expected something completely different. "Thanks."
"The place is beautiful, isn't it?" my mother says, looking around as if she were in a museum.
"Well, I was expecting a sarcophagus, and it's not," I reply, eyeing the massive windows.
"Danni!" my mother snaps in a harsh whisper.
As we carry the boxes inside, I keep scanning the apartment. There are books nearly everywhere, art, landscape photographs, travel souvenirs, a small carved wooden figure, and a decorative mask. However, the more I look, the more glaring something else becomes.
There are no photographs of Alice. Not a single one. I don't see family portraits. I don't see any obvious keepsakes. I don't see anything to indicate that a girl named Alice Vence ever existed.
The sensation is strange and unsettling, because I've spent the last two months living in a world where Alice is everywhere: she's in the seafood pizza at the Mariner's Pavilion, in my bedroom, in the songs I listen to, on the town streets, in the awkward silences of the adults, and in every conversation nobody wants to have.
And here... here she isn't. Or at least, I can't see her.
I try to shake off the unease as we finish bringing up the last of the boxes. Charlie works right alongside us without pausing; she doesn't look tired, she doesn't look sad, she doesn't look broken. She looks like someone who lost her keys, not her sister. As if nothing had stopped and the world kept moving forward at its regular speed.
I don't understand how she does it. And if I'm being completely honest, I'm not sure I like it either.
Two hours later, the move is done. My parents stand by the door for several seconds, dragging out a goodbye that neither seems to know how to handle.
"Call me when you get home from school," my mother says.
"Okay."
"Every day."
"Mom."
"Every day."
"I'll try."
She hugs me tightly, and my dad does the same a few seconds later. When they finally leave, I watch them disappear down the hallway until the elevator doors close.
And suddenly, everything feels different, because now it's real. I'm not just visiting, I'm not just helping with boxes, I'm not pretending this is temporary anymore: I'm going to live here.
The realization hits me full-force. I close the door and lean my back against it for a second.
"Coffee?"
I look up. Charlie is in the kitchen.
"What?"
"I'm going to make coffee."
"Now?"
"It's always a good time for coffee."
That is so reasonable it's impossible to argue with. "Yeah. I want coffee."
"Perfect."
While she occupies herself with the coffee maker, I scan the place once more, making absolutely sure there really isn't a single trace of Alice's existence.
"Coffee's ready," Charlie calls out from the kitchen.
I sigh.
Looks like I'll have to interact with my new roommate after all.
I trudge out of my room and find two mugs sitting on the breakfast bar. Charlie is leaning against the marble countertop, checking something on her laptop.
"Working already?" I ask.
"I'm always working."
"That explains a lot."
Charlie ignores the comment.
"Before you disappear into your room for the next six months, there are a few rules."
There it is.
I knew that sooner or later, a PowerPoint presentation titled How to Survive Under the Charlie Vence Regime would make an appearance.
I eye her suspiciously. "I knew this moment would come."
"There aren't many."
"That's what every dictatorship says."
Charlie ignores that comment too and sits across from me. "No boys."
I blink. Then I rest my elbows on the counter.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but my entire social life is currently buried in a wooden box, and she was your sister."
The words spill out before I can stop them.
The silence that follows lasts barely a second. Charlie looks down at her mug. For a moment, I think she's going to say something back.
She doesn't. She just keeps going.
"Be home before ten."
"Okay..."
"Those are your parents' rules, not mine."
"Traitor."
"I voted for midnight."
"Liar."
"Maybe."
The answer catches me off guard. It's the first time I've noticed anything resembling humor in her.
Charlie takes a sip of her coffee. "No parties... or well... not without your parents' permission... I don't know..."
"Being an adult is hard, isn't it?"
"No alcohol."
"That feels like an accusation."
"No setting the apartment on fire."
"You're making a lot of assumptions about me right now."
"I'm trying to prevent tragedies."
"A very pessimistic approach to cohabitation."
Charlie sets her mug down on the counter. "And no pets."
I laugh. "I can't promise that."
"Danni."
"What? Animals find me."
"I don't want to wake up and find out you hid a goat in your room."
"Why do you say that like it's a highly specific past experience?"
"Because with you, I feel like it could be."
"It's because I'm legendary and you know it."
Charlie closes her eyes for a split second. "I already regret this."
"Me too."
To my surprise, that coaxes something like a smile out of her. Small. Brief. So brief it vanishes before I can even verify it was actually there.
I head to my room in silence. The room is nice too, of course. It has a huge window with a partial view of the harbor. From there, I can see the tips of the masts swaying in the mist and a row of gray rooftops that look straight out of a postcard. There is also an empty bookshelf and a desk against the wall.
I let out a sigh and then sit down on the bed.
My phone vibrates. It's Daniel, and for some reason, seeing his name still triggers a strange reaction in my stomach. I open the text:
Charlie agreed, right?
I frown. You knew too?
The three dots appear almost instantly. The whole town knew.
I stare at the screen. Excellent. Glad to be the last to know.
This time he takes a few seconds longer. To be fair, they didn't ask me either.
A smile creeps onto my face before I can stop it; small, involuntary, annoying. Because I've been living alone with Charlie Vence for exactly forty-five seconds, and I'm already smiling because of Daniel Brown.
I lock my phone before my brain has a chance to overanalyze the matter. This is not a good time to think about Daniel. It is definitely not a good time to think about his eyes, or his smile, or anything else related to him.
I have much more urgent problems. Like unpacking my life, for instance.
I start opening boxes just to keep my hands busy. Books, notebooks, clothes, and more books slowly clutter the desk. Most things find their place quickly.
Until I reach a small box I don't remember packing. I open it without paying much attention; inside are movie tickets, old photographs, school concert stubs, and other items that probably should have ended up in the trash years ago.
I'm about to close the box when something blue catches my eye. I carefully pull it out.
It's a bracelet. Simple, made of blue thread and small silver beads.
I freeze. I recognize it instantly. Alice spent entire days looking for it last summer; she tore apart my room, her room, her backyard, and even her dad's car, convinced she had lost it forever. When she finally gave up, she declared the universe had something personal against her and spent a whole week complaining about it.
I hold the bracelet between my fingers, and for a moment, the apartment vanishes. So does Charlie, the boxes, and the scent of coffee drifting in from the kitchen.
My mind flashes back automatically to three days before that fateful night. To my front porch. To the start of the summer. To Alice sitting on the railing, dangling her sneakers in the humid air and checking a notification that had just popped up on her phone screen.
I remember the smile that crossed her face perfectly.
"Samuel's going to be there."
At the time, it felt like any ordinary invitation. Now, I know it was the first domino to fall.