***Last Summer***
You stomp up the stairs fighting to keep from punching your fist through something. That stupid bitch was making a fool of herself in front of all of your friends, and you'd be damned if you were going to let her drag you into her neurotic fits. It wasn't worth it: the fight; the relationship. You can hear her friends gobbling like turkeys, consoling her, assuring her that it wasn't in her head above some snickers and laughs of disbelief. Even in your angry state you realize that in the end, this will be remembered as the night your ex, Katie, went crazy, right before you dumped her.
You are sure of that now. The two of you were through. You don't have the energy or the interest in putting up with her act anymore.
Walking down the hall, you turn into Katie's brother's room. Her parents and her brother Kyle are at the family cottage for the week. Kyle has a lock on his door, and his own bathroom. You lock the door behind you needing time to cool off before letting yourself talk to anyone. You walk past Kyle's desk covered in computers and other bits of electronics to the washroom, turn on the cold water, and lean on the sink. Looking up into the mirror, you can see that you look like hell- a shell-shocked soldier. Your face suddenly takes on a grim look of determination. This matter had settled itself, hadn't it?
You splash cold water on your face, and towel off. You move into Kyle's bedroom, and lie on his double bed. You close your eyes and try to control your breathing. Your mind keeps returning to Katie and your anger and frustration keeps surfacing. You get off the bed, feeling a desperate need to distract yourself. You move to Kyle's desk. The kid's a geek. He's got a laptop and a desktop, as well as the broken components to two or three others spread across his "work space". Interspersed amongst the chaos are a few video game controllers, headphones, a couple of digital cameras, and a mile or two of loose wires. Despite his geeky nature Kyle's not a typical geek. He's pretty popular in school, balancing his social life with his nerdy tendencies. You push some of his clutter around. and find an expensive camcorder and an iPod buried in the rubble. The kid is crazy about his electronics.
You smile, distracted by your fond affections for that crazy bitch's little brother. How could two siblings be on such opposing ends of the fucked-up-scale?
Before you slide back into angry thoughts, a gentle knock sounds at the locked door.
You ignore it. You don't want to talk to anybody right now.
The soft tap sounds again and someone calls quietly through the door, a whisper as though the person doesn't want to be overheard by anyone else, "David?" It's a female, but you can't tell who. Something, a pleading, in the voice moves you to open the door.
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