Songboy

II

It's easy enough to guess what did happen after that.

All Hell broke loose.

Poor Ryan, unable to focus on anything, anymore, was given a week to cope. Basically, in his mind, it was a week to sit around in a dark room all day with nothing to do but look over his shoulder every five seconds to see if some idiot is going to come at him with a knife. It was a painful experience for him in general. He had to power clean the blood off the carpet, all on his own. It took about four pretreatments, and Ryan felt like a total trash bag looking up, 'how to get blood out of carpet,' on Google. Everyone else was too busy with other things. It kind of annoyed him how much this effected him and no one else, really. Well, all except poor little ex girlfriend, Margaret.

She was with Sean for two years before they broke up. Ryan never really knew why. They were madly in love, and just like that, Sean was binge watching a bunch of heart wrenching soap operas while crying into a bag of popcorn.

Ryan would have loved to blame Margaret for the Death of his friend, but she simply didn't have the spine to pull that off. It was just something he knew. Margaret Hodan was a literal teddy bear, just like Sean. Both of them couldn't and wouldn't hurt each other. Ryan just had a gut feeling.

Which is why he got really mad when Margaret came to his door, sobbing, saying that the police pinned her as the prime suspect for her ex boyfriend's murder until further evidence was made to pull her out of the equation.

As he pulled her into a tight hug, he felt her tense and her body shake with sobs. Her brown hair fell into his chest and she seemed to forget how to balance. She was exactly how he was when he found Sean. "Who would do this, Ry?" She sniffed.

"I don't know, Margie. I really don't know." And they sat like that for the rest of the day, crying and being each other's weathered rock.

--

The next day, the entirety of Ryan's friends decided that it was time to pull him out of his safety cave and into the real world for the first time in two days. The leader of the pack, who nearly knocked him over when he dragged him out of his room, was none other than mister Zachary LeMense. "You need to socialize," he mumbled, staring at his best friend.

"Fight me, Zach." Ryan pushed him away, shoving his hands in his loose short pockets. He blew out a sigh. Many would have liked to believe that Ryan had let himself go, but he did nothing of the sort. Ryan had kept himself well groomed, and well maintained for the past five days. He just never left the room. He never needed to, and he would much rather stay in there than go with his handful of friends to some ratty old Starbucks and spit their lactose free macchiatos at each other.

"Come on, Ryan! Put on your freaking shoes and come out of this room or so help me I will drag you down the stairs." Zach chuckled, a smug grin on his face. "Fight me, Gerstemeier."

Ryan rolled his eyes, shoving his feet in some excessively expensive Chacos. He pulled them tight and then stared at his friend, who was now joined by Brandon, Margaret, Christina, Blake, and one of Ryan's other friends: Hayden.

Hayden was an all around nice guy. He was athletic, and kind, and a bit of a nerd, but he was nothing compared to Ryan in that aspect. Hayden preferred to spend time alone a lot. He lived off campus, which is why he wasn't there when Ryan had found Sean, and he was kind of glad he wasn't.

"Where are we going, LeMense?" Ryan felt like challenging his friend, stepping slightly closer to him than one may expect.

"We are getting ice cream and talking about our feelings." Zach spat back, failing to hide the tiny chuckle finding its way up his throat. "The best way to live."

"Fine, but I'm buying," laughed Blake. His scrawny stature shook with amusement as the friends started down the stairs in the dormitory.

--

"Wait, he what?" Zach's face was red with nothing but laughter as Margaret continued her story. It seemed to lift a weight off her shoulders when she spoke of Sean. It was quite a nice thing to see. She was one to talk, and they were all great listeners.

"I kid you not as soon as they started wilting, Sean took off the petals, and put them in little jars, and made, what he called, makeshift watercolor paints," Margaret had the biggest smile on her face. "I think it was the biggest romantic endeavor anyone had ever thrown for me. He used them to paint a picture of a rose and then gave it to me," she paused. "He told me, Now you can keep the roses forever. They'll never wilt, and neither will we."

"I never took him for a romantic," Blake shrugged.

"Oh, definitely," interjected Ryan. "The only thing he would ever think about was that and classes. That boy was such a lover I was afraid that if he ever ended up in a dangerous situation that he would ask for an autograph." Ryan looked down into his chocolate chunk ice cream.

"He probably did," Margaret's breath hitched at the statement. She pursed her lips, lifting the spoon to them, but not parting them in an attempt to keep from crying, again.

"Let's talk about dogs." Hayden suggested.

"I'd love to, but I have to go." Christina threw her ice cream cup and plastic spoon in the garbage can. "I have this thing tomorrow and I have to get some rest. Catch up later?"

"Later, Chrissy." Hayden waved. "But anyway, back to dogs."

And they spent the whole night like that, shoving cold dairy in their faces, talking about whatever they wanted. It was the first time Ryan had felt like doing something. It was the first time Ryan really felt like himself again.

Until they came back to the dorms.

And Ryan heard Zach scream.

And they saw Zach's roommate, Peter Eckard, in the same spot that poor, poor Sean Foe was in, just five days before hand.

And then the roles were switched, and all Ryan could think about again, was finding out who could have done it.

And the letters carved into Peter's arm: NM.