Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A Thief of a Roommate

The roommate sank into the chair with a sigh heavier than the thunderstorm pressing against the windowsill. “I need the money, okay? I just- I need-”

“I don’t care!” I screamed. “‘Cause you think I don’t! I need that money, and it doesn’t matter ‘cause it’s mine anyways, and you have no right! What on earth could you have been thinking? It’s not like it’s difficult to ask for a loan and-”

“I couldn’t, okay?” she burst out, a blood-curdling screech heard in Australia, where my parents were away on Sabbatical. I wondered what they were doing now; certainly they weren’t being robbed by someone over there. This was a sick joke to me. I worked hard for that money, to stay in college, to live a good life… “I was trying to protect you.”

Wait- what? “What?” I asked, after the long crevice of silence that tore the room down the middle.

“I’ve, I’ve- there was some guy on the street offering me this stuff and it looked so good and I couldn’t resist I was so stressed out and he said it would be okay and I kept coming back again and again and again and now I can’t stop anymore and if I didn’t pay he would come after everyone I knew and I knew that would be you and I didn’t want anything to happen to you and I can’t I just can’t.”

More writing by this author

Blogs on This Site