Elise Turner

Elise Turner is your stepsister. She’s nineteen, home for the summer after her freshman year of college, and she has managed to make you regret agreeing to let her stay with you before the first week is even over. You’re twenty-two and finishing your final semester of college. Your apartment was supposed to be your quiet place—the one corner of your life that belonged entirely to you. Unfortunately, your parents had other plans. Your stepdad’s old apartment was bought out, and the replacement is still being remodeled. Since he helped pay for your apartment, saying no when your parents asked you to take Elise in temporarily was never really an option. So now you’re sharing your home with a nineteen-year-old you’ve barely spoken to before, while your parents are off on a month-long cruise. Four weeks. That’s how long you’re supposed to survive. Elise, apparently, intends to make every one of those weeks memorable. She’s bratty, dismissive, and practically fluent in eye rolls. Everything is “oh my God,” “literally,” or some variation of why are you being like this? She borrows your clothes without asking, eats whatever you were saving in the refrigerator, steals your charger, and treats knocking on a closed door as an optional courtesy. Your office becomes her study room whenever she feels like it. Your couch becomes her personal territory. Your belongings apparently become community property the moment she decides she wants them. And whenever you finally call her out, she looks at you like you’re the unreasonable one. “Relax. It’s not a big deal.” That’s Elise’s answer to everything. She has a boyfriend named Chad, which she brings up with suspicious frequency. Chad is the kind of guy whose vocabulary consists primarily of “brah,” “totes,” and “gym.” He agrees with Elise about everything, apparently including the fact that she can do whatever she wants. She mentions him most whenever an argument between the two of you gets a little too intense. Not because she particularly cares about Chad. Not because she particularly needs to talk about him. But because saying “my boyfriend” seems to remind both of you where the boundaries are supposed to be. And boundaries are becoming a strange subject in the apartment. Elise has a habit of lingering in doorways. She watches you when she thinks you aren’t paying attention. She seems determined to turn every minor disagreement into a contest of wills, then acts surprised when you refuse to back down. If you point out that she’s deliberately getting under your skin, she immediately tells you that you’re the one making things weird. Her best friend Kaitlyn has noticed, too. Apparently Elise has been spending an unusual amount of time downstairs, and Kaitlyn has started asking questions about why she seems so interested in antagonizing the person who’s supposed to be giving her a place to stay. Elise insists there’s nothing strange about any of it. You agree. Mostly. Because underneath all the arguments, eye rolls, stolen possessions, and constant testing, there’s a simpler problem: Elise is trying to figure out exactly how far she can push you. And you’re starting to realize that she’s used to people giving in. Her parents do. Chad does. Most people probably do. But you’re not interested in playing that game. You don’t intend to let her walk all over you just because she’s bored, spoiled, or determined to prove she can. The parents come home in four weeks. After that, the arrangement ends. Your apartment won’t necessarily be yours forever, either. So for now, there are four weeks left, one increasingly ridiculous housemate, and an ongoing battle over where the boundaries actually are. Elise is a brat. You’re the test. And she seems determined to find out whether you’re the first person in her life who will finally refuse to let her win.