Later in the night, I’m cleaning up my dorm. Well, pretending to clean it up. Everything is perfectly organized, since I had just moved in a few days ago. I feel wrong just sitting around, though. Especially with a guest coming over.

  Mama always said that guests should come to the cleanest house imaginable anyway.

  I check my watch. 7:02PM.

  Amy should be here by now. Unless she’s one of those types to arrive at things an hour late. She better not, since I remember exactly what she said.

  “I have to leave by eight, though. I have a party to get to.”

  Just as I’m about to scold her in my head, an aggressive knock echoes through my entire dorm. I flinch at the noise, before relaxing with a soft breath. It’s probably just her. Since I’m in my socks, I slide like I’m ice skating to the door and open it up. Sure enough, a particular bitchy face meets my gaze.

  ‘Hey. Come on in,’ I greet her as cheerfully as possible, stepping out of the way to let her in.

  ‘Nice place. Ish,’ Amy steps in, looking around the room with a glint in her eye. The sparkle that means she’s probably going to find something to make fun of.

  Before she says anything, I take hold of her shoulder and steer her toward my room. The walls are similar to an asylum, without the padding. It’s all just white. The only variation is the ceiling, with the popcorn on it. A tiny twin bed lay in the corner, and just a pile of neatly folded clothes sits in the opposite corner. On top of the clothes, like a king on a throne, sits the only picture I have of Heki. He’s rather young in the photo, maybe fifteen years old, but it’s undeniably him.

  ‘Who’s that? He’s hot,’ Amy points to the picture. I completely stop, slowly turning to her. I feel so many emotions at this moment, and absolutely none of them are positive.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I spit, voice shaking ever so slightly.

  ‘He’s hot,’ she repeats.

  My mouth opens and closes. I’m a fish. A damn fish. Who says that!?

  ‘One, he’s fifteen in that photo. Two, that is my brother. My dead brother.’ I feel the muscles in my shoulders tense involuntarily at his mention.

  Amy goes silent for a moment, hand still pointed at him.

  ‘Still hot,’ she shrugs, flopping onto my bed like she owns it.

  This girl has zero shame.

  I inhale sharply and close my door. I grab my laptop off of the floor, bringing it over to the bed as well. I land on the bed with a soft thump, and push Amy out of the way. She’s taking up the entire damn bed. Fatass.

  ‘Alright, let’s just get this over with,’ I opened my laptop. She just remains laying there, like a corpse. Like Heki’s-

  Woah.

  Let’s not go there.

  I take a deep breath, squeezing the paper-thin sheet below me. Why is she still just laying there? I start to pull up google.

  ‘Are you just going to lay there? Now that I think about it, you didn’t bring a laptop,’ My fingers still on the keyboard, and I turn to her.

  ‘Nope. Since you seem to know so much, I’ll let you do the general research,’ Amy’s foot jabs into my thigh. Bitch.

  I just about stab her with my nail, until I stop myself. One, I don’t have any nails to stab her with since I had bitten them all off. Two, she just isn’t worth it. Don’t fall for the bait. She pulls out her phone, pointing the camera at the picture in the corner.

  ‘Do you have any other pictures of him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him,’ Amy gestures to the photo, as if it’s obvious.

  ‘I do, but since you apparently have the hots for him, hell no.’ I roll my eyes. She scoffs, and lets out a pathetic whine.

  ‘Come on!’ She groans. I feel around for my phone, and it’s gone. I look up from my laptop, to realize she has it in her hand.

  How the-

  ‘Hey!’ My arm stretches out, trying to snatch my phone back.

  She simply moves it out of the way. I click my tongue, and move the laptop off of my lap. She’s looking through my photos. Goddamnit. She eventually stops on one. He had sent me that photo right before he died. He was a freshman in college. Five years ago.

  ‘Oh my god. That’s what your brother looked like? Man, now I’m all… warm.’ She fans her face, still keeping my phone in a firm grip.

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  ‘Dude! You can’t just take my phone like that!’ I jam my thumb into her thigh like a hammer to a nail. She gasps, throwing the phone into the air by accident.

  ‘OH MY GOD-’ I caught it midair. My eyes nearly pop out of my head. Damn, okay.

  I discreetly put both my middle and ring finger down, flicking my wrist downward.

  Aw man. I’m not Spiderman.

  ‘Why. The fuck. Would you throw my phone like that!?’ I exclaim. Damn. I yelled so loud it hurt my throat.

  ‘Damn- I’m sorry. Chill. Would it kill you to lighten up a bit?’ A forceful exhale leaves Amy’s lips.

  Lighten up? Lighten up!?

  I’m about to start screaming at her, until the dorm door opens.

  Holy- is someone breaking in? What’s happening? My heart rate accelerates, and my stomach lurches. I raise my fists, before slowly standing up to approach my bedroom door. I grab a slipper on my way out, ready to wield it like Mama did. The flashbacks roll through my head, and I study her movements. I open the door, and it’s super dark. The sun must have already set. There aren’t any windows in my bedroom, so I must’ve lost track of time that way.

  Alright. To get rid of this burglar.

  What would Mama do? I glance at the slipper in my hand.

  Wind the arm back.

  Aim at the silhouette.

  Fire!

  The slipper shoots off into the darkness like a cannon during the 1700s. Lightning speed. It clearly lands, because a small ‘ow’ comes from the darkness. Oh shit. I recognize that voice. I almost laugh, but my guilt overrides it.

  ‘Remi? Shit- is that you?’ I feel around the wall to turn on a light. I find the light switch and press it, feeling the cold plastic against my fingertips.

  ‘Yes! Ow…’ Remi’s pupils shrink as the light turns on, and her hand goes over her forehead. ‘That hurt.’ She shakes her head in disappointment.

  Amy also returns from my room, wearing that stupid smirk on her face. I don’t even turn to her, just sigh. Remi glances between the two of us, her eyebrows furrowing.

  ‘Man. I didn’t know you swung that way, Tomi,’ Remi speaks bluntly. She’s trying to hide a smile, though. I can’t tell if she’s joking or dead serious.

  I blink a few times, backing up. My hands go up instantly.

  ‘Woah woah woah- what?’ My entire being is flabbergasted. Almost as much as when Amy said my dead brother is hot.

  ‘Yeah. Is that not what you two were doing?’ Remi tilts her head to the side a bit. Sort of reminds me of Finn. She’s dead serious, I realize.

  ‘No-no-no-no-no!’ I repeat the word ‘no’ so many times it starts to feel weird on my tongue. I turn to Amy, quickly getting behind her and pushing her towards the door.

  ‘Alright. It’s time for you to leave since you’re not doing anything anyways,’ I firmly state. I keep pushing until she is right outside the door, and I slam it in her ugly face.

  ‘Anyways- what are you here for? What’s up?’ I flop down on my couch, jaw instantly relaxing. It was starting to hurt anyway.

  ‘Well, Finn told me to bring this to you,’ Remi gives me a sticky note. ‘He told me not to read it, so I didn’t. But there,’ She points to it again.

  I nod in thanks.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Mhm! I’ve gotta go now. I have an identity paper to work on for my humanities class,’ Remi steps to the door, putting on her shoes. She waves to me with a sweet smile before leaving. Once the door closes, I sigh.

  Finally alone. With an entire project I have to do. Great.

  I trudge back to my room, grumbling softly under my breath. I flop down onto my bed. Ew. Now it smells like the strongest perfume and- is that alcohol I smell? Illegal.

  Anyway, I immediately get back up and sprint to the bathroom. I search through the cabinets until I finally find my holy grail: the Febreze. I snatch it up like it's my last meal and I’m a starving woman, and make my way back to my room.

  ?

  Once I’m finished spraying the living hell out of my bed, and the chemicals dissipate into the air enough to not kill me if I breathe it in, I flop onto my bed once more. My cheek burrows into the pillow, and a hard sigh escapes my lips. Damnit. Now I don’t want to move. I groan. The two sides within me start a war. Either I can lay here and sleep for the rest of the night, or get the first part of the project out of the way so that I don’t have to worry about it.

  Ugh.

  I might as well get it done. I don’t sleep easily anyway, so there’s no way that would happen. I sit up quickly, and my vision darkens for a moment. I blink away the darkness, and grab my laptop. I grab the top and open it up, typing in my password. Google is still up. Good. I pull up a word document for the research part of the project. I also bring the Canvas Page up to see the rubric. The research paper only has to be about a page long. Perfect.

  I take a long, deep breath, and steel myself for what’s to come. I know the memories are going to come back. I know it. But I just have to deal with it for now, after all, this is likely my first big grade in the class. I can’t fail it.

  My fingers hover over the keyboard, simply unable to move. I tell them, beg them, to just do something. Nothing. Like the neurons have lost control over that part of my body.

  Another deep breath. I try again. Come on. Just type, Tomi. It isn’t that hard.

  Eventually, after nine deep breaths, I get to typing. I write out one thing in the search bar.

  Heki N. Case.

  That’s enough for my eyes to sting.

  Another breath. Come on, Tomi. You can do this.

  I click on the first link that pops up. It has ‘.gov’ at the end of it, so it must be legitimate. That’s at least what I learned in my elementary school classes. It reads a bunch of random shit that I already know. Who he was, what they found, but nothing on how he died.

  I exit the website, and go back to the search engine. I click on a few more of the links. Some say the exact same thing, while others have even less. I pinch my skin, eyes narrowing. I eventually pull up the document and start writing myself with the plethora of information I already have. My fingers move on their own, typing away all the memories I have with Heki. That’s not what this paper is about.

  Jesus, Tomi. This is supposed to be the very, very basic information. Not an entire biography of his life. I groan, slamming my laptop shut. I bury my face in my hands.

  This has not been a very good first day of college.