Adrian Hayes kicked the dorm room door open with his sneaker, arms loaded with a tower of cardboard boxes that threatened to topple at any second. The fourth floor of Greystone University's Pemberton Hall smelled like industrial cleaner and someone's overeager application of cologne. He stumbled inside Room 447B, dumping everything onto the bare mattress closest to the window.
"Okay," he said to the empty room, brushing dust off his faded Greystone High t-shirt. "This is it. Fresh start. New Adrian."
He pulled out his phone, opening the notes app where he'd typed his manifesto at two in the morning last week, fueled bygas station energy drinks and sheer determination.
YEAR OF WINNING - SENIOR YEAR EDITION
1. Make Dean's List (FINALLY)
2. Get lead role in fall production
3. Join a club Dante isn't in
4. Actually talk to cute guys without choking
5. Stop being second place
Adrian read it three times, nodding to himself. The window overlooked the quad, where students dragged suitcases across sun-bleached grass and parents took approximately seven thousand photos. Somewhere out there was a version of college where he wasn't constantly competing, constantly falling just short, constantly being almost good enough.
This year would be different.
His phone buzzed. He answered the FaceTime call without checking the caller ID.
"Tell me you're settled in," Sage's voice came through before her face appeared on screen. She was in her own dorm room—University of Portland, three states away—with purple string lights already hung behind her and what looked like a tapestry of the solar system pinned to her wall.
"Define settled," Adrian said, panning the camera across his disaster of boxes. "I've achieved 'boxes present in room.' That counts."
"Very feng shui. Is your roommate there yet?"
"Nope. Should be here soon though." He started unpacking his first box, pulling out a framed photo of him and Sage at junior prom, both of them in perfectly coordinated blue suits. "I'm hoping for someone normal. You know, someone who doesn't care that I organize my books by color. Someone who won't judge my Spotify playlists. Someone who—"
His phone pinged with an email notification. He pulled it down to check.
GREYSTONE UNIVERSITY HOUSING ASSIGNMENT UPDATE
His stomach dropped before he even opened it.
"Someone who what?" Sage prompted.
Adrian's thumb hovered over the email. "Hold on."
He tapped it open. The words swam in front of his eyes.
Room 447B Assignment:
Adrian Hayes
Dante Alaric
"No." The word came out strangled. "No, no, no, no, no."
"Adrian? What's wrong?"
"This is—" He couldn't breathe properly. "This is the fourth time, Sage. Fourth."
"Fourth what?"
"Fourth random roommate assignment." Adrian sat down hard on the mattress, phone clutched in both hands. "Freshman orientation overnight—Dante. Sophomore year science camp—Dante. Junior year Model UN trip—Dante. And now actual college, where there are literally thousands of students, and I get assigned to Dante Alaric."
Sage's expression shifted from confusion to understanding to something that looked suspiciously like amusement. "Wait, your Dante?"
"He's not my anything," Adrian snapped. "He's the universe's personal joke at my expense."
"The basketball guy? The one you've been competing with since, like, preschool?"
"Kindergarten. And I haven't been competing with him. He's been—we've been in the same space, repeatedly, and he keeps—" Adrian stood up, pacing the small room. "He keeps winning everything I want to win."
"Uh-huh." Sage was definitely smirking now.
"Don't 'uh-huh' me. This is serious. This is my fresh start, and the universe just said 'psyche!' and threw Dante Alaric at my face."
Adrian's mind was already spiraling backward, flipping through mental snapshots he'd tried very hard to bury.
Age Five - Mrs. Patterson's Kindergarten Class
The red crayon. It was the perfect red, the exact shade Adrian needed for his drawing of a fire truck. He'd been searching the communal crayon bucket for five full minutes when Dante—new kid Dante with his dark curly hair and his perpetually untied shoelaces—reached in and grabbed it.
"I need that," Adrian had said.
"I got it first," Dante replied, already coloring his paper with broad, confident strokes.
Adrian had used orange instead. His fire truck looked wrong the entire time, and Mrs. Patterson hung Dante's picture on the wall while Adrian's went into his cubby.
Age Ten - Greystone Elementary Track and Field Day
The fifty-meter dash. Adrian had trained for weeks, running laps around his backyard while his mom timed him on her phone. He knew he could win. He was going to win.
The starting pistol fired. Adrian ran faster than he'd ever run in his life, legs pumping, heart thundering, lungs burning. He could see the finish line ribbon, could imagine breaking through it, could taste victory—
Dante crossed first. One second ahead.
One. Second.
"Good race," Dante had said afterward, barely winded, extending his hand.
Adrian had shaken it because that's what you did. But he'd gone home and cried into his pillow for twenty minutes.
Age Seventeen - Three Months Ago - Greystone High Championship Game
Adrian could still feel the gymnasium's electric energy, could still smell the popcorn and sweat, could still hear the roar of the crowd. Tied game, twelve seconds left, Adrian had the ball. This was it. This was finally, finally his moment.
He went for the shot. Clean arc, perfect form, everything his coach had drilled into him for four years—
The ball hit the rim. Bounced off.
Dante caught the rebound. Sprinted down court. Eight seconds. Six. Four.
The buzzer sounded the same instant the ball left Dante's hands.
Swish.
Game over. Dante's team won. Dante got lifted onto shoulders, got his picture in the local paper, got the trophy, got everything.
Adrian got a participation medal and his mom's well-meaning "you played so well, honey" that somehow made it worse.
"Are you still there?" Sage's voice pulled him back to the present.
"Yeah. Sorry. Just remembering all the ways my life is a cosmic joke."
"Adrian—"
"No, I'm serious. What are the odds? Statistically, what are the actual mathematical odds that I'd be assigned to room with him four separate times?"
"Pretty low, I'd guess. Unless—"
"Unless the universe hates me specifically. Which it does. Which this proves."
Sage tilted her head, her dangly constellation earrings swaying. She'd changed her hair since graduation, shaved one side close to her scalp while leaving the other long. It made her look like someone from a fashion magazine. "Okay, real talk time. Are you ready?"
"I don't think I like where this is going."
"You talk about this guy more than anyone else in your life."
Adrian froze mid-pace. "That's—no. That's not true."
"Adrian. I've known you for six years. You bring up Dante in like, seventy percent of our conversations."
"That's an exaggeration."
"Is it though? Remember when we were watching that baking show and someone made a really good soufflé and you said—"
"Okay, I remember—"
"—'Dante would probably make a better soufflé somehow because the universe loves him more than me.'"
"It was relevant to the conversation!"
"It was absolutely not." Sage leaned closer to her camera, her expression softening. "Look, I'm not trying to be harsh. I'm just saying maybe this obsession—"
"It's not an obsession."
"—this intense awareness of everything Dante does might be about something other than rivalry."
Adrian's chest tightened. "I'm aware of my competition. That's called being strategic."
"Babe, you know his basketball stats from three years ago."
"Everyone knows those stats. They were on the school website."
"You know his favorite color."
"Blue. Because he wore that stupid blue jacket every day sophomore year. That's observation, not obsession."
"You know his class schedule from last semester."
Adrian opened his mouth. Closed it. "We had three classes together."
"You weren't in his fourth period study hall, but you know he had it anyway."
"This is—you're reading into things that aren't there, Sage. I keep track of Dante because he's my competition. Because every time I want something, he's there, being better at it. That's not obsession. That's strategic awareness."
"Strategic awareness," Sage repeated, her tone making it very clear she wasn't buying it.
"Yes. And this year, I'm going to finally beat him at something. Something big. Something that matters."
"Or," Sage said carefully, "you could try being his friend."
"Friend?" Adrian laughed, the sound harsh even to his own ears. "Why would I want to be friends with someone who's spent my entire life proving I'm second best?"
"Maybe because he doesn't actually know you feel this way? Maybe because you've never had a real conversation with him?"
"We've had plenty of conversations."
"'Good game' doesn't count as a conversation."
Adrian returned to his boxes, yanking out clothes with more force than necessary. "I don't want to be his friend. I want to win something he can't take from me."
Sage sighed, the sound crackling through the phone speaker. "Okay. I'm going to say this once, and then I'll drop it. Promise."
"Sage—"
"Just listen. Maybe the universe keeps putting you two together because you're supposed to figure something out. And maybe that something isn't about winning or losing."
"That's very Hallmark movie of you."
"I'm serious, Adrian. What if this is an opportunity instead of a punishment?"
"An opportunity for what? More humiliation? More coming in second? More watching him be effortlessly good at everything while I have to work twice as hard just to almost measure up?"
"An opportunity to get over whatever this is." Sage gestured vaguely at the screen. "Because, babe, I love you, but this Dante thing has been your entire personality since sophomore year."
"It has not—"
"You literally created a five-point plan to avoid him and still ended up as his roommate. Maybe take the hint."
Adrian sat back down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. Through the window, he could see parents hugging their kids goodbye, students greeting old friends, everyone starting their next chapter with excitement and possibility.
He felt like he was starting his next chapter with a weight around his ankles.
"I don't know how to just be okay with this," he admitted quietly.
Sage's expression gentled. "I know. But maybe that's the growth part. Maybe this is your chance to figure out why you care so much."
"I care because he keeps beating me."
"Maybe. Or maybe there's more to it than that."
They talked for another ten minutes before Sage had to go help her roommate assemble a loft bed. Adrian unpacked in silence, hanging clothes in the cramped closet, arranging books on the built-in shelf, setting up his laptop at the desk on his side of the room.
His side. Because soon Dante would be here, claiming the other side, existing in Adrian's space, breathing Adrian's air, probably being perfect at roommate-ing the way he was perfect at everything else.
Adrian stared at the empty bed across from his. Navy blue sheets would probably go there. Dante always liked blue. There'd probably be basketball trophies on the shelf, pictures of Dante with his million friends, maybe that letterman jacket he'd earned junior year while Adrian got—
His phone buzzed. Text from his mom.
Mom: All moved in, sweetie? Dad and I are so proud of you! 🎓❤️
Mom: Be open to new experiences, honey. College is about growth!
Adrian laughed, the sound bitter in the empty room. Growth. Sure. He'd grow. He'd grow into someone who could finally, finally beat Dante Alaric at something that mattered.
He stood at the window, watching the sunset paint the quad in shades of orange and pink. Students were still moving in, still laughing, still starting fresh.
His phone buzzed again. He glanced down.
Unknown Number: Hey roomie! Just parked. Be up in 5. -Dante
Adrian's stomach flipped. Five minutes. He had five minutes to prepare himself, to put on his armor, to remember that this was war, not friendship. This was his year to finally win.
He turned toward the door, shoulders back, jaw set. He'd been training for this his entire life, even if he hadn't known it. Every competition, every loss, every second-place finish had been preparing him for this moment.
This year, things would be different.
The doorknob turned.
Adrian's breath caught in his throat as the door swung open.