= Sarah POV =

  I blinked groggily and rubbed my eyes. The light was coming in from a strange pce. I squinted through my fingers and wondered why the window was right across from the bed instead of to the side…did rooms often shapeshift overnight?

  Then the memories of st night came flooding back, and I sat up straight in bed.

  I was in Chris’ bed. I was in Chris’ room.

  “Shit,” I thought to myself and carefully turned to the side, expecting to see Chris there. Instead, a familiar Post-it note was stuck to the sheets on Chris’ side of the bed, with no sign of her to be found.

  I sighed, fell back against the sheets, and grabbed the note. This meant that Chris had already left for work.

  “Check your phone. You need to download the app from the link I sent you and sign in. Also, breakfast is in the microwave, and I already set up your computer in your room, so try your best to find a job, will you? You don’t want to be at my beck and call forever…or do you?” read Chris’ note.

  I bit my lip. This was seriously not how I had imagined things to go. It was different when I still had the apartment—I felt like I could leave at any time and retreat to my safety net. Like this, I felt trapped by my own irresponsible actions, caught in a web that Chris controlled entirely.

  “Ugh! This is why I hate living with you! You have always been so f***ing controlling!” I excimed out loud and thrashed about on the sheets for a bit in defiance.

  I tore up the note, left it scattered all over the sheets, and left the room. ‘Good luck trying to pick out the pieces from the sheets ter, Chris,’ I thought smugly, grinning as I pictured her crawling around the bed, searching for scraps.

  As I reached the door, I noticed another Post-it note stuck at eye level.

  “First request: pick up all the shreds of Post-it notes that you just scattered all over the bedroom. Thanks,” Chris’ second note read.

  I looked back at the bed and groaned. Okay, I officially have to stop doing that now.

  After a good ten minutes, I had gathered every st scrap of paper and thrown them away into the wastepaper basket.

  I went to the kitchen and retrieved a croissant and a milk coffee from the microwave. There was some hazelnut chocote spread on the counter and a knife, so I sat down, cut open the croissant in half, and added a generous helping of chocote spread inside it.

  Biting into the croissant, I recognized it as one of Chris’ hotel pastries. That surprised me since I remembered her telling me she had thrown away all the food while rushing to catch up with me and the fighting couple. Did she make this pastry fresh this morning?

  The delicious buttery yers of the croissant mixed with the sweetness of the chocote brought tears to my eyes. How did I ever assume that I could cook for Chris when she cooks like this?

  I could at least wash dishes, so after breakfast was done, I loaded the dishwasher and skipped off to my—no, the guest room.

  Sure enough, Chris had somehow found the time between taking us to the storage unit, helping the movers move everything inside, and then helping me choose outfits and personal belongings to bring home, to set up not only my PC but also my gaming console and chair! It was like my old apartment but better because I had a private chef!

  I spun around happily, then froze in the middle of the room. “You don’t want to be at my beck and call forever…or do you?” came back to me, and I walked over and sat on the unused bed. Taking out my phone, I tried to focus. It was so easy to get comfortable around Chris, but the longer I stayed, depending on her, who knew how crazy the requests were going to get?

  All I wanted was to be someone meaningful to her, but at this point…

  …I’ve been demoted even further down the pecking order! I don’t even know what the level below pet is called. Underling? Sve?

  I shook my head. ‘No, I need to focus; I can’t get sucked into depression. My life motto has always been to act first, think ter, and it has worked out just fine so far, so I need to keep at it! Things worked out in the end—even if it’s a little strange, I finally get to sleep next to Chris!’ I said to myself reassuringly.

  I thought back on st night when we were in bed together. Chris had kicked off her shoes, loosened the top few buttons of her shirt, flopped onto the bed face-first, and fallen asleep. So much for getting taken advantage of…

  ‘But now we get to have breakfast with her every day!’ I thought again, then remembered that I had eaten by myself a few minutes ago in an empty house.

  ‘Well, we still have a great friendship. I mean, she took you in and gave you a pce to stay when you were in dire need,’ I thought, but then I remembered her standing there in the middle of the empty apartment, with a very devilish-looking smirk on her face, while she listed the new terms and conditions.

  And then also, after Chris had paid the movers and they had left, while Chris bolted the doors of the storage unit, she had turned to me and pushed me up against the storage unit door.

  Chris’ intense eyes bore into mine, and she said, “Starting from today onwards, we are no longer friends, got it? You’re my tenant. I’m your ndlord. You owe me—big time—and I intend to hold you to it. A prank that has cost a portion of my savings and has rendered me unable to date for a while is not a prank; it’s a deliberate attempt to destroy my life, so you better be ready to pay for reparations.”

  “Okay, so…friendship in shatters then,” I said out loud to myself, a hand over my rapidly beating heart. A notification appeared on my phone, and I swiped up to open it. Something wet dripped onto the phone screen, and I looked up at the ceiling, only to realize the water was in my eyes.