One Last Attempt

006

I'm bouncing on the couch, waiting for Baker to get back from his exam. The flat is spotless, but I get the feel the need to scrub it down. On my knees with a toothbrush, getting in between the cracks in the tile. I wish I could talk to Mari, to ease the bubble of anxiety inflating around my heart and constricting my lungs, but I can't. She would call me crazy, call Ava and Jessie to get me admitted to a psych ward, and then where would Baker be?

Hopefully, intact in bed.

Trying not to panic, I spend most of my time thinking. I plan out the seven days in my head. Day one: the party. Day two: studying for poetry. Day three, today, is the day of the poetry examination. Tomorrow, Baker and Mari have their fight. After that, I spent the next two days buried in the library to prep for my exam. Finally, on the last day, Baker died.

I want to figure out what I'm going to do, but I just end up running those days in my head, trying to remember as much as I can. It was all a blur, and all of it seemed unimportant to me at the time, but it must have mattered to him. Otherwise, what would I have been sent back to do?

Exchange my soul for nothing. I was sent back to fail.

When I hear the key in the lock, I brush my sweaty hands on my pants.

"How'd it go?" I ask, stretching one arm out on the back of the couch. My body is too stiff, not like Baker's was when he waited for Mari to join him just two nights ago. Even having relived the night, it still feels like weeks have passed since I've seen everyone. Even though I never truly could process Baker's death, his appearance still manages to leave my heart thumping loudly.

If I've failed to help him pass the test, his heart while still in just five days.

Baker shrugs. "It went okay, I suppose. We're lucky we studied Eliot, since he was a major player."

He doesn't ask me how I was able to warn him about Eliot as he takes off his long coat. He doesn't smile or question me like I worry he will; he simply slinks over to the fridge. While I cleaned, I had thought about what I would say to Baker if he asked me any questions, and I had yet to come up with a good solution.

"What's Mari getting up to?" I ask, pulling myself upright. My body goes stiff, as if I expect her to pop out from behind the door. That's what happened last time. She walked him home and then she stayed for lunch.

Baker closes the fridge door, and goes to grab water. The water drips into the cup slowly, one drop after the other.

"The rain said to the wind/ 'you push and I'll pelt'," Baker's voice is heavy and thick. Almost guttural. I wonder if he is being possessed by something that isn't Baker.

"Sorry?"

Baker looks back at me. "Frost. It was on the exam."

The words escape me as soon as they were there, but I want to know more about them. I want to savour everything he says to me, to keep it tucked away in a special box. Even if his certainty makes my hands tremble, so much so that I hide them behind my back.

"Anyway, I wasn't really feeling up to hanging out with Mari," he continues, as if he hasn't caused an earthquake in my arms. "I think I'm just going to play video games."

With that, he walks back to his room. He leaves the glass of water, untouched on the counter. When the door is shut, I stand up and put the glass in the sink. I wash it out. My hands are raw, the skin turning pink from the chemical scrubbing I have done of this whole place, but my labour is unstoppable. It takes me over. I can't help myself.