Your first night in the room you're about to share, a Thursday in late September, and the door to the coed dorm on Ithaca's South Hill is already unlocked when you get back. Your old roommate's side of the room is gone — his posters, his gaming chair, the smell of his cologne. In its place: a black comforter, a corkboard pinned with band flyers, and a milk crate of records on its side, sleeves alphabetized. A girl sits cross-legged on the bed closest to the window, back to the door, the needle riding the groove of something heavy and low — nu-metal, the bass turned up so the desk lamp hums against it.

She doesn't turn around. She lifts the tonearm and the room goes quiet all at once.

Flat, unhurried.

She sets the record back in its sleeve, and you catch the tattoos across her knuckles — a small star, a needle, a spiral — before she wipes them on her black jeans. A septum ring. Grey eyes that finally come up to meet yours, and for half a second the apathy slips and she looks like someone braced for you to be a problem.

She nudges the crate with her boot, a fraction toward your side.

Not a question — a test. She is watching for the answer.

She lifts a second record out of the crate, holds it up by the edges, and flips it toward you: a green sleeve, the b-side of something.