College Fiend [A$AP Rocky]

Eleven

Shadows.

They appeared all the time; from the corner of my eye I could see them. When I’d point them out, Sheena couldn’t see them. No one could. So from this, I gathered that it wasn’t college I belonged in. It was a mental institution.

Then again, wasn’t this a mental institution of its own? Everyone here was going crazy—including me. People were killing each other off and no one knew who was who. That sounded a bit crazy to me. All we were missing were nurses and pills. Fortunately, though, I never had that much time to think about the university. As soon as classes were dismissed, I was either doing research online for schoolwork, murder cases, or checking up on the murder case itself.

Travis was still in jail.

They would have released him, but the fact that his skateboard was nowhere to be found aroused suspicion in the detectives. For a few days, I really thought Jesse hid his skateboard for some reason. I had no indication of this, by the way.

Now a select group of us were here in the precinct for group questioning once again. Wayne, Neffie, Sheena, Brian, Hunter, and I sat side-by-side in a row waiting to be addressed.

“I wish I was rich.” Wayne, who sat next to me, said suddenly. He had a habit of only speaking for me to hear, almost whispering, when we sat next to each other (which was very often).

“How come?” I asked.

“Then I wouldn’t have to be sitting through this.”

“Money doesn’t solve all problems, Wayne.”

“Yeah, but if I had enough cash I could get on a plane and go away forever.” He looked at me when he said this, as if he was trying to tell me more than he was saying. We held that gaze for a while—that’s another thing we did often, staring at each other for no apparent reason—until Detective Albany, who seemed to be in charge of the case, stepped out of his office and motioned for Neffie to stand and follow him.

“Hey, detective?” Hunter asked.

“Yeah?” Albany turned to look at him.

“Who is Jaamani’s family pressing charges against?”

The detective cleared his throat and looked away, as if he pitied Hunter and it hurt him to have to be involved with all this. It was clear that Hunter was only concerned for Travis’ wellbeing. We all were; at least he and I. “They don’t know, and neither do I.”

And then he and Neffie disappeared into his office.

The rest of the crew kept up with their small chat, but three of us: Wayne and I, who were plainly silent, and Brian, who was close as possible to the office to eavesdrop.

“Wayne?” I said out of the blue, in the same almost-whisper voice as his. “How did you know her?”

He swallowed briefly and bit down his bottom lip. “She was my friend,” Wayne told me. Oh. “Not my girlfriend, if that’s what you’re asking. We dated a while back, in middle school. That was a long time ago. Since then we’d been close friends, like siblings a bit.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. That’s all I’d wanted to know since the night of the murder. Why had I wanted to know so badly, anyway? Did I have a bit of a crush on Wayne even before the kiss? I wouldn’t be surprised if I did. Every girl did; he was flawless, after all.

Wayne smirked at me then, as if he could hear my thoughts and found it funny that I liked him. I rolled my eyes and looked away; but in that moment, only I knew how much I wanted to kiss him again. Just one more time—I didn’t care if it would ruin everything again. His lips just needed to be against mine, right where they belonged.