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My brother I’d never consider annoying. I loved him more than anyone; he was part of me, the good part. We may have been separated, but there wasn’t a day that I wasn’t reminded of him. Sometimes, those reminders were cruel because I missed him, but I locked my feelings for him in the compartments of my mind. But seeing him again unlocked the compartments along with other parts of me.
A girl nudged by me, giving me a dirty look beneath the rim of her glasses as she went into class. I met her glare, unflinching, and she was first to look away. I hitched my slipping book bag up on my shoulder. “What do you mean?”
Dana rolled her eyes and her long lashes, accentuated by heavy mascara, touched the light pink eye shadow below her brows. “The party?”
I was hoping she’d forget about that. But I knew better. Dana was the opposite of me in that she loved to socialize. She was also a few years younger than me since I had started university so late.
“You promised.” She lowered her voice as she leaned toward me. “Dillon will be there.” And Dana liked Dillon—a lot.
Dana bounced on the tips of her toes as she grinned at me. I’d avoided three parties so far and finally said yes when Dana begged about this one, insisting it was mostly friends of hers from her old school and the lacrosse team. The lacrosse team weren’t like the football team and appeared sort-a-kind-a okay. But what won my yes to the party was the fact that appearing social and having friends was normal and I was trying my best to get that, despite the gun lying at the bottom of my bag right now.
“So, your place to get ready?”
“Okay,” I said. At least no one would be there as Ream wasn’t back yet and Crisis and Kite had bought a new place.
“Great,” Dana shouted then flung her arms around me.
I stilled. The immediate reaction to her touch pushed the trained response in me and my body tightened up like a spring, hands curling into fists.
She must have felt my tension because she lowered her arms and backed off. There was only a flicker of question in her eyes before it vanished and she smiled. “Okay, and I’m bringing something for you to wear because you aren’t going like that.”
I looked down at my black jeans and my long sleeve baggy shirt. There was nothing sexy about my clothing and I liked it that way.
Dana spun on her heel calling over her shoulder, “See ya at seven.”
I watched her flounce down the hall and then I slipped inside the large auditorium where Professor Neale cleaned the chalkboard from the previous lecture. I heard my phone vibrate against something hard in my bag.
I walked up the steps to my usual seat at the back right then unpacked my writing book and saw the bright glare of words on the screen of my phone in the bottom of my bag. I took it out and glanced at it.
You reading this?
That was all he said. I went to put my phone away when it vibrated again.
Do you realize that reading my texts and not responding is considered bad etiquette?
I sighed. I was pretty sure if he texted one of those girls in the cafeteria, she’d have texted back within milliseconds.
I’m ego-dented. You realize that, right?
I huffed and felt the corners of my mouth curve up. I dropped my phone into my bag hearing it vibrate again, but I ignored it as Professor Neale wrote on the chalkboard in big capital letters Heads-Up.
A Heads-up was where we wrote non-stop for an allotted amount of time. Our pens had to remain moving no matter what, even if we had to write ‘I can’t think of anything to write’ over and over again.
I hated it at first and that is exactly what I wrote over a hundred times the first day. The second time, I wrote that only fifty times then my mind got sick of it and I started writing about Urma’s shed.
I don’t know where the memory came from because I’d been high most of the time. Ream and I huddled in the corner of the shed, between the rake and the snow shovel. He’d found an old smelly brown blanket with oil stains all over it, which he tucked around me. I tried to share it with him, but he always insisted he wasn’t cold.
I closed my eyes. God, I failed him time and again. I’d been so broken and weak and scared, spiralling out of control into the escape of the drugs, needing anything to make the pain disappear. And Ream . . . Ream never gave up on me. He kept trying and I kept screwing up until Olaf finally found me in the hospital after one of my overdoses and took me away.
Pathetic. I’d been our poison, our weakness. But not anymore. Despite the minor hiccups like what happened in the cafeteria, I had control.
“You thinking about what you’re going to write?”
I tensed at the male voice sitting beside me and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My pen dropped from my grasp and rolled down the decline of the smooth surface of my desk and fell to the floor. I leaned over to grab it and so did my new neighbour and our heads hit.
“Owww,” we said simultaneously.
I rubbed my head and he smiled. “I’ll get it.” He leaned over again and grabbed my pen, then held it out to me. But I was looking at him. I was aware of everyone around me. I made it my business to know who was near me and this guy I hadn’t seen before. He was nice-looking, in the clean-cut sort of way, with a sharp, angular jaw and high-cheek bones. Probably over six-foot with how far his legs stretched out into the aisle.
When my eyes reached his, I saw the curiosity in them as he waited patiently for me to take my pen back. “Thanks.” I took it and glanced away. There was a building of a familiar unease in my chest as I felt the burn of his gaze on me.
