A Friend of Mine

Benjamin was on night shift.

Juliana heard him wake with his usual racket, stumbling around in the waning light of the winter evening, the tell-tale squeak of his foot slipping against the bottom of the bath prompting a familiar roll of her eyes. No doubt the bathroom floor would be soaking, she thought as she ate. It was like living with a teenage boy sometimes, not a man of near enough her own age. Then again, there was a sort of childishness to Benjamin; an innocence, almost, like he hadn’t quite let the wickedness of the world in yet. It was as annoying as it was admirable, and Juliana had long since learnt to live with it.

Benjamin came trooping in, hair wet and dripping down onto his t-shirt, just as Juliana was finishing up her dinner. He kept asking about his belt: where was it? Had she seen it? Had she moved it? He climbed around her, a man on a mission, and whooped when he found it, arm jammed down the back of the couch.

“Any plans for tonight?” Benjamin asked, slipping the belt through the loops of his jeans. “Or is it Big Brother and ice-cream for one?”

Juliana stood up with her plate. “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she said, walking to the kitchen. She shouted despite the thin walls and close distance. “And don’t get fucking cheeky with me. I’ll lock and keep the key in the door and you’ll be sleeping out in the landing.”

Benjamin let out a small, “Sheesh,” as he sidestepped around Juliana, who had already stuck the kettle on to make him a cup of tea. He might’ve been the biggest pain in the arse, but Juliana couldn’t send him off to work without a good cup of tea. By his, “Ouch, oh shit, shit, shit,” she figured he’d done a decent enough job of getting his toast done on his own.

Benjamin and Juliana had lived together for the past five years, but they’d been friends for almost seven. They met not long after Benjamin took a job in Glasgow after graduating; Juliana had found him milling around the town centre like a stray dog and dragged him into her miserable party of one for the night, only to never let him go again.

It was a weird process only if they looked back on it carefully. It was a bit like dating—more than a few people had mistaken them for something more, especially earlier on—just not as intense and without the sex. Without all the good stuff, Juliana would laugh. Without all the useless stuff, Benjamin would add.

“I’m still invited to your Christmas do, aren’t I?” Juliana asked as she joined Benjamin at the cramped little table in the corner of their equally as tiny kitchen. “Could really do with picking myself up a nice doctor.”

Benjamin was slumped in his seat, arms tucked around himself as he stared off wistfully. “Couldn’t we all,” he said. Juliana crooked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t think I’ll be going, though.”

Juliana’s face fell. “Oh what? How not?” she asked in a typical Glaswegian demand.

Benjamin’s eyes moved from the window to the table to Juliana’s face. They were dark brown, soft. Only an obliviousness stopped the evil from getting in. He was too soft, sometimes, too naïve and easy to use, too easy to trust who he shouldn’t.

“I think you know why,” he said quietly. He reached out, placing his palm over where Juliana’s hand rested in a tight fist on the table. He was so cold. “Juliana, I’ve got to go.”

She shook her head, looking him straight in the eye. “No,” she said. “No you don’t.”

He gave her that smile—the lips pressed tightly together and eyes wide, the slightest shrug to his shoulder. He moved away too quickly for her to catch, disappearing out of the kitchen and back into the hall. Frozen in place, Juliana’s eyes dropped to Benjamin’s untouched cup of tea and toast.

Benjamin was on night shift—just like the night he’d been killed.