Thomas sprawled out on the leather couch. Playing video games on the flat screen with his friends. Raucous laughter and cheers and jeers.
There was none of it now. The place was dead. It smelled antiseptic, as if someone had come in and bleached the walls. The TV was gray and the game console had been stashed underneath in the cabinet. One guy I didn't know read at the table in the corner by the light of a dim lamp.
It was as if all the life had gone out of Ketlar along with Thomas.
Josh quickly crossed the common room--the only place in the dorm where I was legally permitted to be (not that I had heeded that rule in the past)--and headed into the far hallway. Suddenly I knew where he was taking me. To his room. Thomas's room.
"Uh, I don't think this is the best idea," I said.
"We're not gonna get caught," Josh whispered, taking my hand, just as Thomas had taken my hand right here in this place not all that long ago. "Mr. Cross has been in meetings practically twenty-four/seven since they found Thomas."
I tripped forward as he tugged me. My murky brain tried to find the words to tell him that the last place on Earth I wanted to be was Thomas's room, but we were already in the hall. My breath caught. There it was, the closed door looming up on the left like a creature from hell that could swallow me whole. Inside that room were all of Thomas's things. The clothes that still smelled like him. The books he always stacked next to his desk. The bed that we . . . that we . . . that--
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I opened my mouth to say something. Anything. I could not go in there.
And then we were walking past it.
Josh opened the door at the very end of the hallway. "Here we go."
"What? But I thought-"
I stepped into the tiniest room I had ever seen, barely larger than a Billings closet. The walls were bare, but there were paint splatters everywhere, in every color of the rainbow. I recognized Josh's bedspread from his old room. The bed, desk, and dresser had all been pushed up against one wall so that three easels could be set up along the other. The third was dominated by a tall, slim window. Next to the door was a skinny closet jammed with clothing.
"They moved me here the week after the funeral, after they inspected all my stuff for clues or whatever," Josh said, dropping his messenger bag on his bed. "My old room is a crime scene now."
"Oh. God. I didn't even think of that."
"I know," Josh said, his eyes dark. "I hate it. It's like, how much can one person go through? It's like I--" He stopped himself mid-ramble, as if biting his tongue, and glanced at me. "It just sucks."
"Yeah," I said. I had no idea what else to say.
He moved over to the corner where there was a paint-speckled box with a handle on top. He lifted it with one hand and used the side of it to shove some papers and pens on his desk aside so that he could set it down. Watching him, I felt like I could see what he had been like as a little kid. Somehow he had gotten smaller.
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More vulnerable. And I realized, suddenly, how selfish I had been.
"Josh, I'm so sorry," I said, dropping down on his bed. I shrugged out of my coat and laid it aside. "Everyone keeps asking me how I am, but I never asked you . . . are you okay?"
Josh blew out a breath through his nose. "Yeah. I guess," he said. "The whole thing is surreal, but... what am I going to do, you know?"
I stared at him. "Most of the time you seem so normal. Howare you dealing with all this?"
He looked down. Shuffled his feet. "I have my ways."
Ooooohkay.
"Like what?"
"That's why I brought you here," he said. He popped open the box and lifted out a few paintbrushes. "I'm going to show you one of them."
He slipped an iPod from his jacket pocket and placed it in its speaker system on his desk. One hit of one button, and suddenly the room was filled with screeching guitar. I had to concentrate to keep from wincing.
"What're you doing?" I shouted.
"Helping you get out of your head!" Josh moved over to the first easel and opened up a few jars of paint that were sitting in the attached tray. Then he did the same at the second easel. He turned and handed me a few of the brushes. I stared at them, confused. Did he expect me to paint?