Chapter Text
Karen Wheeler stood in the doorway of her dorm room and felt her stomach sink.
The room was smaller than she’d expected. Narrow beds pushed against opposite walls, two desks, one window. There was no divider. No curtain. No polite distance. Just a shared space she was meant to live in for the rest of the year.
Someone was already inside.
The girl was crouched near the far bed, unpacking a box of books onto the desk. She wore a simple blouse and slacks, her hair pulled back but slipping loose at the sides. She didn’t look reckless or loud or especially confident. Just… settled, like she had already decided this room belonged to her.
Karen disliked her immediately.
“Oh,” the girl said, looking up. “You must be Karen.”
Karen tightened her grip on her suitcase. “Yes.”
“I’m Joyce. Joyce Byers.” She stood, brushing her hands together, and gave a small, tentative smile. “Guess this is it. Same room and all.”
Karen nodded, not returning the smile, and stepped inside. She chose the bed by the window without discussion and set her suitcase beside it. Joyce didn’t argue. That annoyed her too.
Karen unpacked methodically. Dresses hung evenly. Shoes aligned beneath the bed. Books arranged by size. She could feel Joyce glancing over now and then, lingering too long, as if curious.
Joyce’s half of the room was already untidy. Not filthy. Just careless. Clothes folded unevenly. Papers stacked without order. A photograph leaning against the wall instead of framed properly.
Karen noticed everything.
“You don’t have to rush,” Joyce said quietly. “We’ve got all day.”
“I prefer to be finished,” Karen replied.
Joyce nodded, subdued. “Right.”
They moved around each other awkwardly, careful not to touch. The room never quite settled. It felt like borrowed space, like neither of them belonged there yet.
When Joyce suggested dinner in the dining hall, Karen agreed out of obligation, not interest. Her parents’ voices echoed in her head, reminding her to be polite, to represent herself properly.
At dinner, Joyce talked too much. Not loudly, not obnoxiously, but openly. About her classes. About being glad to finally be somewhere new. About hoping college would help her figure out who she was meant to be.
Karen found that deeply unsettling.
She gave short answers, careful ones. She didn’t like the way Joyce spoke as if uncertainty were acceptable.
Back in the dorm room that night, the silence pressed in. Joyce sat on her bed reading. Karen lay stiffly on hers, staring at the ceiling, painfully aware of the other person breathing in the same space.
“This is strange,” Joyce said eventually.
Karen exhaled. “What is?”
“Living with someone you don’t know,” Joyce said. “Sharing a room like this.”
Karen turned her head slightly. “It’s temporary.”
Joyce absorbed that quietly. “I’ll try not to be a problem,” she said after a moment. “I know I’m not very organized.”
“That would help,” Karen replied.
Joyce didn’t argue. She just nodded and went back to her book.
When the lights went out, Karen stayed awake longer than she wanted to admit. Joyce shifted occasionally in her bed, restless. Karen wondered vaguely if she always slept like that.
She told herself it didn’t matter.
This was just a room. Just a roommate. Just something to endure.
Still, as she turned toward the wall and closed her eyes, Karen had the uncomfortable sense that Joyce Byers was not going to fade quietly into the background.
And that bothered her more than it should have.