BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

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THURSDAY
07.11.1996
DORIAN

               I shield my eyes against the overcast (the kind of pure white that reflects the sun so that it's impossible to look in any direction without it piercing one's skull) as I scurry back to our room. There's a communal computer in the reception guests are allowed to use though I regret it now. My knees are still weak, palms still ridden with pins and needles, and I keep glancing across the road as if there are paparazzi hidden in the gorse shrubs.

All my mother did was send me one email and my nervous system prepares to be abducted, floods adrenaline into my blood and hightens all my senses to help me see a black van approach from a mile away. The child in my head has shoved all the furniture in front of the door, clutches the bedside lamp to his chest because it's the best weapon available, and can't stop glancing between the curtains.

It's been twenty-four hours. How does she already know I'm here? The idea of rebellion was thrilling but now that it's too late, I change my mind. I take it back. (Let me take it back. I don't want them to know I'm here. I don't want them to know I'm here with Isaiah.)

I dig out my key as I walk only to halt when I glance across the car park again. A muddy Ford Capri is parked on the spot nearest our door.

A restlessness that develops from rapid changes to how I foresaw my day going brews in my chest (I always have a plan for my day even when I don't consciously make it — in fact, I often only become aware of it when it's disrupted, the slightest hitch as violent as a capsize) and I thumb the 5A engraved into my plastic keychain. Growing tightness in my chest, I drag myself to the door.

Isaiah doesn't look up when I enter. Seated at the table, he hunches over his notebook. The pen trembles an inch above the paper. Though he has shed the jacket, he's still dressed in the black trousers of his hired suit and white shirt, the cuffs unbuttoned. A torn black ribbon is pinned to the left side of his chest for kriah.

'You're back...' It's not a question so I can't blame him when he doesn't answer. Shutting the door so gently it makes no sound, I approach him. 'What are you doing?'

'What it look like? Finishing my dissertation.'

The swarm in my chest is wrung to my stomach. I glance at the print-out of his latest digital draft with a few of his handwritten annotations in the margins, slightly crumpled beside his notebook where he attempts to write a polished version.

'Isaiah, you don't need to do that right now. Your tutor gave you an extension—'

He shakes my hand off before it lands on his arm. 'I want to finish it now. This degree was supposed to take nine months. I just wanna get it the fuck over with already. I ain't taking one more extension.'

If he clenches his jaw any tighter, he'll flare up his temporomandibular joint disorder which in turn is an express lane to a migraine, and the last thing he needs right now is to be physically bedridden too.

My fingers stretch toward him again but I instead grab the back of the second chair to sit adjacent to him.

Isaiah goes on as if I'm not here. His entire face is taut with concentration though the fog over his eyes is unmistakable. I don't know whether it's caused by anaemia, grief, or general lack of sleep, but I do know he hasn't comprehended a single word since he started.

'You've just buried your mother.'

He scoffs a laugh. 'The only thing I'm grieving is my bank account.' His pen-free hand raises to claw into his scalp. 'You got... any idea how much this is costing me? Like I weren't already in debt. Bet she's fucking thrilled. All she ever did was complain how much it cost to raise me. Now she can get her revenge.' Bitterness bleeds like an open wound through his stomach.