TWO WEEKS LATER

57

234 – WITNESS

One of the girls he lives with nearly kills herself by accident.

The communal kitchen is on the top floor, the third floor. Seven of them live below. Four on the ground level, himself included, and three on the second, who have slightly larger rooms. He wakes up and heads straight to the kitchen for coffee and a bagel, and his three female housemates are already around the table eating toast and drinking giant mugs of tea.

One of them is reading a magazine article out loud. She is wearing a white T-shirt with a pattern that is obscured by the magazine and a pair of loose, blue cotton shorts. He can’t help but stare at her smooth legs and, as she lifts her foot up to rest it on another chair, he catches a glimpse of more than he bargained for before breakfast.

Perhaps she knew he was watching.

He wonders how she got that small bruise just above her knee.

One of the other girls jolts him back to the real world, waving something at him as he pushes down the lever to toast his bagel.

‘Sorry, this is yours, I started opening it by accident,’ she smiles and hands across a white envelope with his name clearly printed on the outside.

‘Oh, right. Thanks. No worries.’ He takes the envelope from her hand; she rejoins the others, who are laughing at the article, and he tries to capture one last look at the pink he saw between that blue cotton and the milky white skin of her legs.

She has no idea how close she came to killing herself.

She could have been next.

What if she’d read that first page?

The kettle boils and he makes himself a cup of instant coffee with cream and two sugars. They call that regular where he’s from. He spreads a thin layer of butter on the bagels, lashings of cream cheese, and takes it back to his room with the unopened letter gripped to the bottom of his plate.

‘Later, ladies,’ he utters over his shoulder, opening the door with his foot.

‘Lateeerrrrr,’ they respond, exaggerating his American accent and laughing again.

In his dormitory, he places his breakfast on the desk and flicks on his laptop to check emails: his family back west will be asleep for another few hours.

The computer takes a moment to boot up and he swings back on his chair, scanning the room he currently calls home. The pin board he never uses. The walls he is not allowed to affix posters to. The overflowing trash can spilling over with balls of screwed-up essay trials.

He leans left and fingers the curtains apart to see if anyone is outside. The launderette is close and he often watches people trail there with baskets of clothes and bags of sheets. But not today.

Nobody is there.