The Annoying Sleepwalker novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Just Things

Kelsey smashes the watch, the guitar and the tablet in her sleep, Jessa hands every owner their own words, and Colson demands $9,800 or the police.

Kelsey lifted the watch out of the center of my desk with two fingers.

She held it up to the lamp light for a moment.

Then she laid it face up on the desk and brought the lamp base down on it.

The glass cracked on the first blow.

She hit it four more times, until the green face came loose and rolled onto the carpet.

I lay completely still and kept my breathing slow.

Kelsey picked up the RA's guitar by its neck and swung it against the edge of the desk.

The neck snapped with a sharp twang that rang through the room.

She dropped the body on the floor and picked up the tablet.

My roommate took the unopened can of Coke she had left on her nightstand, cracked it, and poured it slowly over the screen.

She did not spill a drop on anything of hers.

The tablet flickered twice and went dark.

Then she turned, walked back to her bed, and lay down with her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open.

It was 2:58.

I waited a full minute.

Then I got up, stepped over the wreck, and opened the door.

I screamed down the hall as loud as I could.

"Help! Somebody help! It happened again!"

Doors banged open all along the third floor.

Colson got there first, in his boxers and one sock, with the two basketball guys behind him.

He stopped in the doorway and looked at the desk.

His face went the color of paper.

"My watch," he said. "My watch."

He crouched and picked up the green face with a shaking hand.

The RA came in next with her robe half tied.

She saw the guitar on the floor and made a sound I had never heard from her.

"My dad's Gibson," she whispered.

The girl from 3C walked in, saw the wet black tablet, and covered her mouth.

Casper appeared at the back of the crowd with his phone up.

Kelsey did not move in her bed.

The whole floor was shouting by then, and she slept through all of it.

I took a deep breath and turned to face them.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "She didn't do it on purpose."

The RA's head snapped toward me.

"She's sick, you know that," I said gently. "Don't push her. She's in a bad place already."

Nobody in the room said a word.

I looked at Colson.

"It's only a watch," I said. "You can always buy a new one."

His mouth opened and shut.

"Actually," I said, "you said you'd buy two."

The two basketball guys looked at each other.

One of them said, very quietly, "Dude, he did say that."

Colson stood up so fast the green face fell from his hand.

"That was a joke!" he shouted. "This is nine thousand eight hundred dollars!"

"It's a laptop," I said. "A watch. A guitar. They're all just things."

I turned to the RA.

"You said you'd be upset for a day and then buy another," I said. "It's on camera."

The RA's face went red.

"That's not the same," she said. "That was my father's guitar!"

"And mine was my laptop," I said. "Mine had four years of schoolwork in it."

"This is different," the girl from 3C said in a thin voice. "It was a $2,100 set!"

"You said it was honestly just stuff," I said. "You said you'd get over it."

Nobody had an answer for that.

Colson pointed a shaking finger at me.

"You set this up," he said. "You put my watch on that desk on purpose."

"You handed it to me on purpose," I said. "In front of your friends."

"You knew she'd go for it!"

"You told everybody on this floor that she didn't know what she was doing," I said. "So how could I have known?"

Colson's friends stepped back from him.

His jaw worked, and then he went to the bed and shook Kelsey's shoulder.

"Kels. Babe. Wake up."

Her eyes fluttered open.

She looked at the crowd and the broken guitar, and her face crumpled.

"Oh no," she whispered. "Oh no, oh no. Did I do that again?"

She began to sob, and Colson wrapped his arms around her.

"It's okay," he said into her hair. "It's okay, baby. It's not your fault."

Then he lifted his head and looked at me over her shoulder.

"She's in pieces because of you," he said. "You tricked a sick girl."

The RA crossed her arms.

"He's right. That's cruel, Jessa."

"You will pay for this," Colson said. "Nine thousand eight hundred. Today."

"For a thing that can always be replaced," I said.

"You were holding it! You were responsible for it!"

"I was asleep," I said. "Same as her."

"Pay me, or I call campus security and the police," he said. "I mean it. I'll report you for destruction of property."

The girl from 3C nodded. The RA nodded. Both basketball guys, after a second, nodded too.

I looked at the five faces that had told me to let it go.

Then I looked at Casper, who was still filming from the back wall.

"Okay," I said. "Call whoever you want."

I picked up my phone from the nightstand.

"But first," I said, "everyone in this room is going to watch the footage."

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