Chapter One

The day my older sister, Claire, left for college she gave me this book.
This is how it happened. When I went outside to get in the car that would bring Claire and her stuff to college, there was a minifridge in my seat. And it wasn’t moving. “It’s either it or me,” I said. My parents looked at each other. My mother gave me money for pizza and said they wouldn’t be home too too late. My father gave me a weak smile. As they pulled away, Claire smirked out the window, then made that stupid Macaulay Culkin Home Alone face at me: a hand on each cheek and her mouth opened wide. I gave her the finger. Then I went back inside–there was no reason to start the day at this ungodly hour. Claire was the crazy one who had insisted on leaving at five-thirty a.m. because she wanted to beat her roommate there so she could get the best side. “Everyone knows that’s how it works,” she had explained. I didn’t think that was the nicest way to start things off, but I didn’t say anything. You couldn’t argue with Claire.
She had signed up for some pre-pre-preorientation college thing so she could “survey the competition, get a jump on everyone else, and hit the ground running.” Part of her motivation for doing this was because she had, according to her, been given the worst incoming first-year student at Yale for a roommate. Someone who had probably only applied there because she wanted to be like Rory on Gilmore Girls. Or First Daughter Barbara Bush. I didn’t think being like Rory was such a bad thing, but I kept my mouth shut. Besides, I secretly thought it was possible Claire had chosen Yale for the same reason.