I'm not worried at all

A girl in my neighborhood was murdered yesterday.

I found out this morning, on my way to French as I grabbed the paper to read before class. It gave me that little bite in my stomach, the kind you get when thunder shakes your house and the glasses rattle in their cupboard.

It's been hard to stop thinking about it. Violence two blocks from home is unnerving. Learning about the French Resistance and femoral fossae is difficult when the end of the day means a path toward a crime scene.

I walked through the door and my roommate, Brittany, looked up to make sure I'd locked it behind me. I sat down next to her on the uncomfortable futon and we traded speculation and hearsay, the only details the Madison media is offering.

My other roommate, Tyler, was terrifyingly devoid of his usual bravado when he got home.
Last spring's sexual assaults had inspired fantastical tales of what he would do with a baseball bat were our house to be attacked, but today all he talked of was his fear of having to walk through the streets tonight on his way to work.

I called my brother. I hadn't talked to him in awhile, and he comforts me like he's the older sibling when I need it. Reverses our roles when I'm scared. He didn't have much to say about the attack, merely advising me to be careful, sleep at Adam's, lock the doors. He offered up his own local tragedy (a church explosion due to gas leak) to even things out, and then changed the subject. He talked about his friend's valet work transforming into a job as chauffeur to a Chinese millionaire, who doesn't dare ding his Ferrari after several drinks. He bubbled up his newfound intellectual fervor in facts about Tchaikovsky's tortured homosexuality, Mozart's rockstar tendencies, and Beethoven's revolutionary brilliance.

Warm and himself, pushing life gently back into safe familiarity.

My brother, Schroeder, shining out at last.