• I rapped my fist gently on the old wooden door I had been standing in front of for the better half of an hour. My indecisive nature had, as always, gotten the better of me. When silence returned my greeting I sighed and shifted my weight from one precariously placed foot to the other, anxiously. Patience was a virtue I had never quite grasped.

    I stepped off of the tiny, hollow coffin of a porch onto the snow sheathed sidewalk to stare up at the old, lifeless building. In my mind, the four story, cement building might as well have been the armory of an enemy medieval country. Its high, grey blank walls seemed greatly intimidating as they loomed over me and its fourteen, identical windows emanated doom in their shadowy blackness.

    ‘Give up and go back’ a voice inside me droned exhaustedly. I hated failure. It just wasn’t in me to accept it. I needed to do what I said I’d do.

    “What are you doing here, Avina?” a voice asked from behind me

    I jumped and spun to see who had called me. A boy stood a short ways away drowning in a thick snow coat a size or so too large for him, holding a paper grocery bag on his hip. He looked me up and down as I did him and snorted as if I had offended him.

    “What are you doing here?” he asked again
    I glared at him for a quick second, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
    He jostled his bag so he could extend a hand to me. “Benjamin Zerach. I’m in the class you just entered.”
    “Oh…” the name didn’t strike my memory but I shook his hand none the less
    “You don’t recognize me, I know, but that’s alright. You just came here and all.” He shrugged and shifted his bag to the opposite hip.

    I was starting to question what was in his discreet, brown paper bag that seemed so heavy. He shifted his feet impatiently and I realized he was still waiting for an answer.

    “Uhm…Liza asked me to bring a note here for her…do you know who lives here?” I fumbled
    “No one lives here; this building is abandoned. I know who she’s looking for, though. I’ll give them the note for you.” He droned and stuck his hand out again.

    I managed to pull the folded up little piece of white paper from my hip pocket and dropped it into his palm. He tucked the note into his own pocket, said a clipped goodbye and ducked around me to keep walking down the street.

    I treaded through the fluffy blanket of snow as quick as I could manage and returned to my host family’s home. I hadn’t liked that neighborhood and Benjamin’s apathetic temperament had put me on edge. Why had I been asked to bring a note to an abandoned building?

    Lidia, my host mom, was cooking some type of strange food that night and the herby aroma had saturated the entirety of the first floor of the house. Eric, my host dad, hadn’t returned from his work yet, and Charlie and Tessie. were playing their own version of chess in the living room. I greeted them all before I rounded the little passage to the stairs to head for my bedroom. As I climbed, Liza’s music ringing out in the walls, I could think of many reasons to turn around and ask Lidia to send me home.

    “Liza?” I tapped on the door to Liza’s and Tessie’s bedroom “Liza, it’s Dizzy, I need to ask you something.

    The volume of the music dropped, nearly shut off, and I waited for Liza to let me in. The door made the wait easier. It was covered completely with band posters and photos from Liza and abstract looking drawings and sparkly stickers of butterflies and hearts bigger than both of my hands put together from Tessie. A neat little piece of the two sisters.

    “Hey, you’re back.” Liza’s voice snapped me back from my daze
    “Oh, yeah” I blushed, “Er, who exactly was that note for, earlier? The building you sent me to was abandoned.”
    “Oh…uhm…Did he not find you out there?” she asked
    So Benjamin was supposed to meet me there in the first place “He did! I was just…wondering what all the precautions were for?”
    “He doesn’t want anyone to go there who doesn’t belong. It would be bad if he were caught, you know?”

    She didn’t even give me time to respond. She said a quick thank you and shut the door between us. I made a point not to look at it and turned to my room across the hall. My door still boasted its original homey style and faded white paint. I pushed past it and slunk into my cozy little bedroom.

    It had been the guest bedroom before I had arrived, and in a way remained so. The décor of the wide, rectangular room was simple and approachable. It reminded me a little of a hotel room the first time I saw it. After I unpacked, the single floor-to-ceiling bookshelf which stood as a sentry beside the door was flooded by my favorite pieces of literature and art and random knickknacks I had brought along to remind me of the few good parts of home.

    I flopped down onto the twin sized bed, tucked away in the back corner of the room. Thoughts floated around as if they were drifting through a lazy river, memories splashed the walls of my mind like paint splattered by an artist having a tantrum, and jostled ideas of what I should and shouldn’t want collided. I didn’t like silence. My head ached from all the noise.

    “Music…music…music…” I mumbled and dug through my nightstand to find my iPod.

    With my favorite songs filling the my ears the storm between them settled and I was safe once again.