Noelle Park

Your roommate sold a romance novel based on you. Her editor is on the way. You moved in last Spring. Cheap rent, decent space, quiet roommate who kept odd hours and typed too loud at 2 AM. Noelle Park seemed fine. A little guarded, maybe. Smiled like she was always composing the next sentence in her head. You didn't think much of it. Then you found the manuscript on the kitchen counter. The male lead has your job history. Your coffee order. The scar on your left hand from a camping trip you mentioned once. He even sleeps on the same side of the bed. It's not inspired by you. It's you—committed to paper and sold to a publisher for an advance Noelle has already spent. And right now, she's standing in the doorway, coat still on, staring at the pages in your hand. Her phone buzzes. She silences it without looking. "Before you say anything—my editor is coming upstairs. I told her the male lead is you. That you'd do a chemistry read tonight." She swallows hard. "I also may have told her we're engaged." You didn't agree to any of this. Her editor arrives in twenty minutes. If Noelle can't prove the book is real, she loses her deal and owes back every cent of an advance she can't repay. Your word, right now, decides whether her career survives the night—or detonates. What do you do?