The door stands ajar: an open invitation, or, perhaps, a threat. I breathe in, filling my lungs with chalky, choked
air. Untouched for six years now, the room beckons me. I breathe out.
The light hits the doorhandle just so, and for a second, it glimmers gold. As I stare, the door swings open—the work
of the wind, a ghostlike gust. I should shut it—I have every time before—but on her birthday? I step inside.
Her room is just as it was. It is not the perfect room of a dead girl; it is the messy room of a girl who once lived. Her
bed is undone, yet her sheets carry dust. On her bedside table, Othello lies open, spine cracked from long nights
reading. She was so excited to study Shakespeare in college. I cough, and it sounds too loud in a silent room.
Seeking balance, I trace the walls as I enter. They’re sticky, as if freshly painted, and I pull my hand away. My
fingertips are stained with blood—red paint. Everything in her room is some shade of red; every shade looks like
blood. My thumbnails dig into my stained skin, rushing to peel off the memories, replace her blood with my own.
My foot tingles, my calf, my knee. I shake my leg, but whatever’s there holds fast. I look down into red spider eyes
as little fires erupt on my skin; Athena was her name, a birthday gift long forgotten. Her hairy legs halt on my mid-
thigh, and I stumble back toward the door, now shut. My sweaty palms beg the handle for mercy, but there is no mercy
for the guilty. The door is locked.
Athena tilts her head, posing a question I cannot answer. One smash of a book, and I could kill her, but who kills
their best friend’s pet?
Six years now, Athena has waited for revenge; six years too long, I have resisted. No longer.