CHAPTER 4

I laid in my bed, swooping in and out of sleep. My body felt awake but my mind was still a continuous wanderer. I tossed and turned, crumbling the sheets the only way only I know how. I was asleep and at the same time, I wasn't. Far off in the distance and into the hallways, I could hear doors banging, people talking, footsteps approaching, laughter sounding and the loud, perturbing ringing of my phone.

The loud, perturbing ringing of my phone.... my phone....

No, that should be here in this room.

The beeping sound blaring and unceasing drew closer and closer and closer, sounding like the horn of a juggernaut hence assaulting my ears and crippling my thoughts. It rose to peak and then ebbed and then rose to peak again, undulating like a wave and all the while ringing my brains out like a sponge. Till my fingers snuck under the soft and warm comfort of my pillow and pressed down on a button did the noise cease.

Brought sharply into focus, I fished out my phone and stared down at the screen, suspiring. It was only the alarm once again jolting me out of sleep. During the time I had spent studying to get into college, I had set it up to aid me rouse and study. Now, I'm where I want to be, I should take it off but at the last minute, I adopted a different plan, considering the fact that it could still be of great help during the exam periods, just like old times.

I glanced around the room, mildly surprised by the darkness that had consumed it. It was pitch black-just noir casting its shadows upon objects and furnitures. There is something so fascinating about the dark-something so compelling. It comes as strong, protective arms holding us close until the promise of dawn. Within it, we are as children once more, safe in shields of duvet.

My phone glinted in the darkness, my eyes darting out to the screen. Instantly, they fell upon the five missed calls notification taking up the space in the middle. Five missed calls- all from dad. It had totally slipped my mind that I was to call him to let him know I was fine and had zero troubles getting comfortable. I had slept off before I could put in a call. He must have waited up for me and chosen to call it a day instead.

Sighing, I switched on the flash and swept it across the room, stalling at the empty bed opposite mine. Empty? It was meant to be occupied. Someone is meant to be in it-at this instant.

Lana

I blanched. She wasn't back? Panic-stricken, I glanced at the time sitting at the top right corner of the screen. 2:15am. My stomach shifted uneasily as I bolted out of bed and rushed to the bathroom that connected with the main room. Flashing the light around, it was empty, no sound heard to refute that. I took another quick glance at my phone screen. 2:20am was sitting comfortably at the top screen, staring back at me.

She had been gone since the minute hand began revolving around six after a quarter past and nothing around had given me the inpression that she had blown in and left again. Biting at the insides of my cheek, I noticed the hands I was hugging myself with were pinching into my skin. I released them but couldn't figure out what to do with them, so instead they clasped and unclasped each other.

Where could she be? The ungodly hour wasn't doing anything to lessen my worry.

Worried, I stalked into the toilet and emptied my bladder. I was washing my hands, cutting out some tissue paper to dry them off when I heard it.

I heard the doors jiggle roughly against its hinges. The knob twisted and turned. I froze in my spot, wide-eyed as it jiggled once more, shaking roughly before exploding into a full blown pounding. Each strike, elevating primal fear. My mind briskly refuted the chances of it being Lana behind the door, threatening to pull it down. The weight of the blows were too strong and deadly-almost predatory to be hers.

Adrenaline flooded my system. It pumped and beat like it's trying to escape. My heart, likely to explode and my eyes, wide with fear.

With my fingers curled, nails digging into my skin, a shaky voice doused with fear, I opened my mouth. "Who's there?"

The response only came with more pounding. This time, it was furious, each blow striking the door hard-so hard that it shook, vigourously. It seemed like my asking who was there did nothing but infuriated the person standing at the other side more than he already was.

I blenched when a voice came through sounding like a drum, but deeper, like a tuba, but deeper, "I swear to God, whoever is in there, if you fail to open this damn door this minute, it would come crashing down hard in the next." The voice I heard had nothing to do with Lana's soft and lustrious voice which only succeeded in bludgeoning me into a nerve-racking ordeal. It was deep like the magma chamber of a volcano but filled entirely with molten rock.

Mum had talked Jace and I out of opening our doors to strangers. People we weren't familiar with. People we didn't know. Men and women that had no relationship with us. I never thought I'd be in that situation given the fact that I had no friends. No one knew who I was but here I am.

He hit the door again making me nearly bolt out of my skin.

              "I'm coming." The words barely slipped out of my mouth. I doubt he heard me.

I clenched my fists and took a deep breath. Hesitantly taking a step foward, I noticed my feet trembled. Biting at the insides of my mouth, I advanced toward the door, brazing myself up for whatever was going to happen. I made up my mind if something shady was going to occur the moment I unlocked the door, I was going to scream my lungs out.

Twisting the door knob, I recoiled when the door gave way and blanched immediately. Eyes stretched, mouth flinging open, brow furrowing as shock and surprise took over my body wholly. Nothing in this world could have ever prepared me for this scene at the moment.

I recognized the guy forthwith. The guy standing in front of me. It was the very one at the lobby. The one that had caught me staring at him. The very one I had awed at. Here he was, standing in front of me, his eyes staring me down as a deep frown etched his face. The playful smile occuping his lips then had drawn into a hard line across his face.

Up close, his eyes were a mesmerizing deep ocean blue, flecks of silvery light performing ballets throughout. Strikingly good-looking, uniquely handsome now that he was closely in front of me. Clearly, I had seen nothing prior. He was sturdy and muscular as a thin cylinder of tobacco rolled in paper settled on his ear but what shocked me to the core was the girl hanging from his shoulder. The girl who hand her arms clasped around him like a second skin. I noticed the clothes on her right away. The ones she had on her before leaving. The clothes Lana was wearing.

Fear gnashed my insides as I took in the sight in front of me. Light and incoherent mumbling slipping from behind him. Pure terror surged through my veins as waves of concern coursed through me. A million ideas of what might have happened...what might have gone wrong ran through my mind, scaling through my thoughts. Unfortunately, none was strong enough to hold water.

Oh God, she looked so out of it...so drained...the worse for wear.

             "Jesus, what happened? What happened to her? Is she okay?" I began rambling...short of words...running off at the mouth. He stared me down for a moment without a response and walked right past me and into the room.

I shut the door, followed him in and took out my phone light, "Is she okay?"

              "Wasted." He said, plopping her down on her bed.

I glanced at him. He was smouldering under his stony expression. My mouth pursed but slightly opened, loose. "What?"

             "She's wasted." He repeated.

My face contorted into a puzzled expression as I tried riddling out what he meant.

            "I don't understand...is she sick or something? She was fine before she left, you know." He turned to look at me-glared at me to be precise, his eyes holding total anger. His jaw clenched and unclenched as he grinded his teeth in deep exasperation.

He sneered, "Now how exactly should I put this so your obsolete brain could at least grasp? She's drunk- blind drunk even, under the influence- soused, intoxicated, hammered. Now, do me a fucking favour and pretend like you fucking get the memo. Would you?"

I paled, cowering at his tone of voice. There was nothing gentle about the way he spoke. He was practically screaming at me. His voice accompanied with a hard, furious edge.

                "I-I didn't know. I just thought....sorry." He glared at me, his eyes flashing with indignance and anger.

Lana laid back, stretching on the bed with an exhausted sigh and began to dose off.

             "No way. No way Lana. You are not closing your eyes till you take off your clothes and shoes." He growled.

Her hands shot out, flying in the air with no specified direction as she unsuccessfully tried to ward him off.

She groaned, "Keegan." Keegan? He is a Keegan? That's his name? The name slurred lazily from her lips. "Leave me alone. I'm not a baby." She complained, stretching each syllable.

His jaw clenched, "But you sure act like one. I've told you times and times and times again to quit doing this but you prefer going your own way. You choose to do whatever the hell you want. Do you think it's easy doing this? Going back and forth with you? C'mon, you're not a baby anymore. You're fucking twenty-one so act like you deserve the fucking number."

              "I'm not a baby. I can do whatever the hell I want." She decreed with unclear focus.

              "When under my care, a thorough thought and detailed scrutiny of your choice of senseless actions would be nice. Trust me." A muscle twitched involuntarily at the corner of his right eye, his mouth forming a rigid grimace.

She giggled. Lana giggled, mummering senseless words and then giggling again. The words that came flying from her mouth again shocked me to the core.

              "If you want to see me naked, all you have to do is ask, Keegan." She spoke unexpectedly clear and coherent.

He reached for her legs and wrapped his hands around the buckles. In a minute, they were out. "Trust me, that's the last thing I want to see."

She didn't speak, she didn't move. Her chest heaved up and down under my phone light. For a minute, I thought she had passed out till I heard her speak again. "He doesn't love me anymore." This time, her voice stooped low, almost cracking, like a choked sob. I nearly didn't catch the words.

This time, his lips sealed shut. No words escaped. Instead, he rose up from her bed, creating the sheets. Inhaling deeply, running his hand through his disheveled hair.

I stood there, unsure of what to do as I stared at him. His eyes and focus were on the girl on the bed. I wonder who she was to him. A look at him and one could see just how much he deeply cared for and loved her. With so much love and attention, even a blind man could sense it.

Nervously I asked, "Is there anything I can do? To help?"

In a flash, his head whipped to look at me. I flinched at his cold stare. Though, this time it wasn't as hard as when he came in but even more so, there were still little hints of unsurpressed anger lurking within them.

              "Watch her." He didn't ask. He didn't request. He commanded, demanded. Without intending to, I succumbed to his behest. In a blink, he was gone.

I took a deep breath and sighed. Cutting my eyes at my drunk roommate, I shook my head, not entirely aware of what to do. I had never been drunk or sojourned in the same vicinity as someone in a drunken state of mind. Any chance of me handling this situation successfully, void of any form of hazzles was unlikely to happen. I was obscured of how to go about this. I only hoped she didn't do this frequently.

Slumping my shoulders, I adjusted her properly on the bed and drew the covers closer. She was already gone, passed out and snoring lightly.

The night was still young, the stars lighting the sky like snow flakes in the night yet appearing still like an old photograph. I obliged the friendly blackness permitting my eyes to rest and my dreams to take centre stage.



The sound of coughing, groaning and choking coerced me out of sleep. Squinting my eyes at the white, piercing morning light penetrating into the room, momentarily blinding my eyesight, I rolled out of bed and tracked the revolting sounds, stalling as soon as I rounded the bathroom.

Lana sat, crouched before her was a large pool of vomit, some of it still trailing from her lips, tacky and opaque. The toilet seater was sprayed with more of the vomit. Her face, white and dropping bile, sweat and tears.

Transfixed and shocked, I stood at the passageway, unmoving. Once again, unclear of what to do. Before I could blink much less think of something to execute in her favour, her stomach contracted so violently that she had no time to stick her head into the toilet. Vile watering liquid reeking of alcohol shot up from her mouth and into the air, and spraying all over the toilet, splattering the walls behind.

I rushed to her and swept her hair from the mess, tucking them behind. She heaved again, groaning and puking into the toilet, spraying all objects within near distance. The stomach-alcoholic stench filling my nostrils. I grimaced.

She pulled out, groaning, tears rolling down her cheeks as her hand reached out, swiping at her mouth, acidic residue smearing the back of her hand.

               "I'm so done with alcohol. I ain't drinking again and I ain't even kidding." She declared, her stomach dry-heaving again.

I kept mute, void of a response.

              "Lord." Her face contorted in pain. "I feel like I'm dying. It hurts so much. Damn."

My mouth twitched. Now wasn't the time to inform her of her outburst of profanity. I sank to my knees beside her, keeping stray hairs off her face.

              "What do you need?"

She turned her head toward me, the caustic fluid coating her mouth and said one thing, "Water."

Abruptly, I dashed back to the room to fetch the white glass I had earlier seen mounting on a red polished stool. I grabbed it, rinsing it thoroughly before filling it with water. Then, I handed it over to her.

She tipped her head back and took a sip. Then another and another.

                "You should rest for a while." I suggested. "To gain some of your strength back."

                "Yeah, I really need that right now." She concurred, discarding the glass of water on the tiles. In a minute, she was off the floor though staggering and jerking to all sides. I held her arm, keeping her steady, leading her to her own side of the bed.

               "Rest. I'll clean up." I said, pulling the covers closer.

She sighed, "Thanks. I would have been surely dead by now if I had gotten a plastic ass bitch for a roommate." She switched to her sides, shutting her eyes and drawing in air. "Good to know I've still got a little bit of luck by my side. You and I would rule the world together, no doubt." She adjusted, rolling on her stomach.

              "I dropped some ibuprofen and a glass of water by the stool. Take it when you're ready to lessen the headache."

              "You see, I know what I'm saying. We are surely ruling the whole world together. You and I."

The minute didn't go round an hour, barely making it to a half before I finished. I scoured the entire tiles and washed the toilet clean, taking a bath right after. I intended getting ready for mass. It was a bright and sunny sunday. My favourite day of the week.

Back at home, the sunday mass usually took off at exactly 9:00pm. Solemn and joyful, reverent and hopeful, every word the priest spoke were from the scripture and so beautiful. Many people have been indoctrinated with the myth that catholics do not read or use the bible as one of their element of worship but we do and we are so into it just like the orthodox, pentecostal churches and the likes.

              "I hope you ain't stepping out." At the sound of her voice, I twirled, surprised sleep hadn't taken over her yet. She was still bright-eyed, brows creased, staring me up and down, lingering too much on my clothes. Then amending, "Dressed like that."

              "I am. To church. Why?" As soon I uttered that, her brows shot up. Her back left the bed and her eyes gazed at me in shock like I had just sprouted a head.

I frowned at her reaction.

              "Are you kidding me? What the...? Please tell me you're joking. Genesis, tell me you're kidding with me right now."

                 "What's wrong?" I was confused.

                 "Are you seriously asking me that? Like seriously?"

My frown only deepened, "I don't understand."

                 "Look at your clothes." She complained, gesturing with her hands. "Look at what you're wearing. Please, tell me all your clothes don't look like that. For the love of God, Genesis. You look like my granny and trust me when I say this cause I ain't toying with you now, her fashion skills are way above yours. Way better than..."she gestured in my direction. "I've got no name for this. Even if you're heading to church, I could bet on my boobs that that isn't the way those...holy saints...followers of Christ dress. "

I frowned, gazing down at the grey ankled length skirt covering my legs and my black long-sleeved buttoned up shirt. I was fully aware of my red-coloured polka dots scarf tied neatly round the collar. I owned numerous neck scarfs of various colours and sizes. However, the one hitched to my neck was my favourite of them all. I loved utilizing it for church masses and her reaction only spewed more incertitude. I was neatly dressed.

I hesitated, "I-I don't understand." I said, glancing down at my clothes. "Is something wrong with what I'm putting on? I washed them thoroughly, you know, smoothened and folded them in my box. They are quite neat and ironed if it's what you're worried about."

Her mouth hung low as she regarded me, running her bulging eyes over. Then as if snapping out of a trance, her hands flew out, slashing the air, aiming at unspecified directions as if warding me off.

                "You know what? Just go. Go pray. Talk to Jesus. Tell him to help me with my headache, else I might not survive this semester." She slumped back onto the bed, once again getting comfortable.

                "Would you be coming?" I asked, hopeful. Mass back at home wasn't over until the third hour. I wasn't sure how it went down here in Oklahoma but I was hoping it held a lot of similarities with home.

An eye opened to peek at me, staring for a while before replying, "Yeah, yeah. Save a seat for me." She waved.

I smiled, pleased. "I would. I should expect you, right? At St. Michael's?" I had spotted the church while coming up to the dorm. Huge, white and catholic, it instantly caught my eyes.

               "Can't be late. Gotta make Jesus proud."