Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tamara stared up at the clock when she was supposed to be studying during one of her classes, wishing it could be over already. She looked down at her paper and started doodling, drawing the shed in the forest, then herself standing beside it. She drew an outline of a person next to her, then drew in scruffy black hair, a checkered sweatshirt and some jeans, but no face. She finished her drawing with the figures holding hands.

Jack looked over at her paper when Tamara started staring at the clock again. When she turned around, he silently pointed to the faceless figure and mouthed, who is he? Tamara covered the drawing with her hand and looked down, her face unreadable.

No one, she mouthed. Jack furrowed his eyebrows and gently moved her hand off of it. Please tell me, he wrote. He was my best friend, she wrote back after a few moments of hesitation. But he's gone now.

What happened? Jack wrote back. Tamara's heart skipped a beat. He fell... And never came back up. I waited, hoping, but he never came back to me. The ground just swallowed him up. Jack bit his lip and took a long time to write his response. Please tell me he wasn't called Marx, he wrote. Please. Tamara looked Jack in the eyes for a long moment before writing, he was my best friend, Jack. Someone has to believe he's coming back, and that person is me. Nothing you say can change my mind. I don't think he is what we think he is. I don't think any of this is his fault.

Jack lowered his eyes. You loved him, didn't you?

Tamara bit her lip and nodded once, quickly. He was so shy and nervous around strangers, and hated crowds, but when you were alone with him and knew him well he was one of the greatest people you could know, she wrote. He had always been a more serious person, and it was a game of mine to do stupid stuff to see if I could get him to laugh. He wasn't the smartest person either, but he was clever. He couldn't do math very well, but he would always be able to solve a mystery or think through a problem. Not only that, but he would always listen to my worries and problems no matter how silly they seemed and would try and fix them. Once, he even fought this guy who was a full foot taller and three years older than he was for me. I came across him just as he was getting seriously beaten up and punched the older boy in the face. He ran away, crying, and Marx and I laughed at him. Tamara smiled at the memory.

When we were little, we found this shed in the woods. It was abandoned, and full of old orange crates, so we made it our hideout. I remember how we fixed it up over the years-I would get the supplies, and he would badly start to fix things with a hammer and nails while I watched him and laughed. I would always go in later and do it properly. My dad being a carpenter and all, I knew how to do that sort of thing, but I always let him try on his own because he got so much entertainment out of it and I got so many laughs out of how terribly he would do. Another thing we liked to do was climb trees in the forest out behind our houses. Climbing was like an obsession of his; he would climb anything and everything. I used to call him Squirrel, even. Whenever he was over ten feet off the ground, he was happy, it seemed. 

Tamara's nostalgia was interrupted by the bell ringing. Tamara hurriedly put her notes on Dark Matter away. Jack put his hand on her shoulder. "Let's talk some more later, okay?" He whispered. "Okay." Tamara murmured. She longed for the days before everything became so serious and complicated, and just wished she could be a little kid again.

Tamara left the classroom and went back to her dormitory. She flopped onto her bed and took out the paper, touching the drawing she had made and sighing. One of her roommates came in and she shoved it under her mattress hurriedly.

"That a love letter?" The girl said, inching closer. "No, leave me alone, please." Tamara said, hiding under her blanket to try and get away from Kate's curious stare. The room was silent for a few minutes until a hand suddenly darted under Tamara's mattress, making her jump and scream.

"Give me that!" Tamara yelled, leaping up and running up after Kate who was trying to read the paper while running. Before she could read anything important, she was tackled by a ferocious Tamara and had the paper wrenched from her hands. It tore, and Tamara was left holding the piece with the picture of her standing by the shed in the woods. The paper was torn in such a way that the tear went right along where the hands were clasped, leaving Kate holding the faceless picture of Marx and staring at it in confusion.

"Who is this?" She asked, only to have the paper snatched away. Tamara stuffed it angrily in her pocket.

"Don't do that!" She shouted, close to tears. "I'm not telling you anything!" Tamara turned and stormed out of the room, leaving Kate sitting, baffled, on the floor.