College Fiend [A$AP Rocky]

Seven

I have never seen a dead body before.

There has never been a time where there was so much blood: all over the walls, on the floor, on Wayne’s hands as he held Jaamani close and cried like a baby. Maybe she was his girlfriend? Then again, it didn’t matter. Whether she was his girlfriend or his sister, I knew the real reason he bawled so badly was because she was in the middle of crying to him, telling him that somebody was making her feel unsafe. She never got to tell him the truth; neither Wayne nor I knew the danger that she might have been in.

But I wanted to find out.

We all evacuated the apartment as soon as the police came. It might have been the quickest evacuation in history. “Don’t let anyone leave these premises without permission!” They shouted. Wayne, Flo and I joined the rest of our peers in the backyard, and then we were steered toward a nearby park. Wayne looked back as the paramedics carried Jaamani’s body on a carrier, with a blanket thrown imprudently over her. He drew in a sharp breath and then pushed past the crowd to speak with an officer.

“You saw her die?” Sheena asked me suddenly. Wow; this was the first time I’d heard her voice in days. I shook my head.

“I went in Wayne’s bedroom to speak to him, and she was in there talking to him. She left so that Wayne and I could be alone, and by the time we were finished talking and left Wayne’s bedroom, she was lying dead on the floor. The apartment was empty besides us, and you in the bathroom. Flo was the only other one in there.” I told her, trying to say it as quickly and straight-forward as possible so to not break out in tears.

I didn’t know her, but it felt like my fault.

“I’d actually left the bathroom already. But Wayne won’t talk to anybody,” She responded. I didn’t say another word. We walked, walked, and walked, all of us quieter than we’ve ever been. It seemed as though our fear overrode our curiosity. We knew well that all of us, every last one of us, were suspects.

“Alright, tell me what happened.”

I sat under the flickering lamp, staring into his cold, unentertained eyes across from me. The room was gray; the desk was gray, what wasn’t gray? His eyes. They were a sharp, piercing blue; if he glared hard enough, he would probably slice right through me like a chainsaw.

“Jaamani was murdered.” I responded finally. He didn’t say anything else, and I wasn’t too sure if he was looking at me. My head was turned to the window, where Neffie leaned against a wall with a cigarette in her hands. She was the only one I could see from this angle; there were others out there though, I knew it. They chose a select few of us to question first, but from what I heard, their plan was to question every last one of us.

“I know that much.” Officer Malcolm spoke up suddenly. It took great courage to look back into his eyes, but I did it anyway. And to my surprise, this time they were softer, more like a calming blue ocean. What made his attitude change? “I want you to tell me what you did as soon as you stepped foot in that apartment. Tell me what everyone else did. Tell me everything.”

I exhaled and interlocked my fingers on the table, trying to calm down my bouncing legs. They grew with speed as I recapped the events of the night, as I remembered the bit of information I heard from the conversation Wayne shared with Jaamani. And then I realized I had options; should I really tell him everything? I could conceal some things, keep them just to myself. But wouldn’t that only make me seem suspicious if he found out what I obscured? That didn’t matter—I didn’t kill Jaamani at the end of the day.

“I walked into Wayne’s bedroom accidentally; I was only looking around.” I began.

“Was he alone in there?”