Nausea: Sequel to Warcrossed

In Dire Need of Assistance

The night I got back to the dorms, I was as quiet as I could be. Boxes were scattered in the living room, in somewhat-neat piles, labeled with bold, black marker whose was whose. The marker itself was laid on the coffee table with two rolls of packing tape. Folded cardboard was leaned up against the wall; all of it belonged to me. When I went to pack, I'd have to pop them out into boxes.

Eliza caught me anyway even though it was past midnight and I'd tried to avoid anyone.

"You're back... How is-"

"Dead." My stride continued on to the wall, and I got the tape and the marker and the collapsed boxes. She must have not had much to say to me about it when she changed the subject.

"Do you need help?"

"No."

I felt guilty when I went into the elevator instead of up the stairs. Nothing jumped out at me. That was just a reminder of what was gone. When the door opened to my floor, I stayed on and hit the button, going to Laf's room first.

Most people would have been swallowed in too much grief to dare go in their dead lover's room so soon, leaving it as a tomb for someone else to worry about, but I didn't ever see why. It didn't matter whether or not that Lafayette was dead. I'd been in the room enough times for it to be ours and not his.

I dropped the packing stuff and kept going out to the pool. I could see him there in my memory and I wondered if he would be able to swim in heaven. It was weird to be out here without him, but it also felt like the best place to be, especially when I dipped my feet into the water. The last night before the game, we'd spent almost three hours playing around, splashing each other and racing around the pool and jumping in and climbing out.

He'd seemed so strong and healthy then, but he'd dropped just like that the next day. It made no sense. And the time we were spending together... having fun, laughing, crying, talking, and kissing all seemed so far away now even though it'd only been three days ago.

I didn't cry. He wasn't hurting anymore. And he'd been so happy the past month, I'd kept my promise, and there wasn't anything to be guilty over. I was in some sort of weird peace-of-mind, not nearly as restless as I thought I would be. I figured it'd come later.

But still. I still had questions, questions I didn't know how to answer, questions I needed to not be there anymore.

What, exactly, had happened to him? And Rose, and James?

Was there anyone else that had gone through it? Was there some way we could have stopped it and fixed it?

I only knew one person who was able to even start to help.

As much as it hurt, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I knew by heart, bracing for whatever was about to happen.