"Stretch it out," Dale yelled running behind the incoming freshman, hitting the symbols together.

They put the instruments down and looked terrified as they akwardly reached down toward their toes.

"Scaring innocent freshman?" I asked as Dale took his position next to me. He tousled my hair, "Nice to see you Cleo, I missed you."

I unsuccessfully tried to push down the lump of guilt brewing in my throat.

"Your not shutting down," Dale shook me harder.

"God fucking dammit Cleo, your not allowed to leave me."

I regarded him with a blank expression. He sat down beside me.

"Cleo, please just say something, please I need you." He became gradually more hysterical as he continued to speak.

"Not zoning out on me now?" He asked in a playful tone, but I could hear the fear behind his question.

I shook my head, "Not today."

"So," he slid between the guard towers and rested his forehead aganist the railing, "a little woodwind told me that you and a special someone were sneaking around here a couple nights ago." He waggle his eyebrows as an act of pressing for details.

"It's complicated,"I started, "I don't know if I want a relationship. . again." I trailed off.

"I'm not telling him. I think he might actually kill you," I protested as Jay urged me toward Seth's bedroom door. Jay pressed a finger to his lips and knocked on the door

He planted a kiss on my head, "It will be fine."

My brother was bent over his desk and he immediately pulled a suspicious look when Jay and I walked in together. I took a deep breathe.

Here goes nothing, " I love your sister." Jay blurted out before I even opened my mouth.

The fury in Seth's eyes were my cue to leave, but luckily the thin walls offered perfect eavesdropping opportunity.

Ten minutes later Jay walked out with a busted lip, but his eyes shinning. He kissed me with overwhelming passion.

"I'll take that as he said yes," I whispered in his ear.....

"I'm not ready," I clarified, my words littered with memories from the past.

Dale nodded, "So what have you been up to if not blowing on Jay's horn."

I gasped and smacked Dale, my cheeks blazing. "The walls in your house really do have no insulation."

"Dale for the love of God please shut up," I begged his as my cheeks got impossibly redder. The freshman flute was listening with increasing attention.

"I have to go talk to percussion," I love Dale, but there was no way in hell I was having this conversation.

"I understand why," he called after me,"they are great at banging."

****

"So you can't give me anything more," the cop shook his head, " Not just a small piece of evidence, anything helps." I pushed the tired looking man.

He sighed, "I'll go and check the storage room again."

I don't remember anything about the night Seth died, the months following were agonizing.

I was suffocating in grief and booze. I just want to know what happened, did he suffer, did he feel pain, was he happy?

Seth.

Even his name was hard for me to say.

"I found something in the storage room about your brothers case," the cop shuffled back over to me and pushed the papers in hand. "It's a small town Cleo, and sweetie you need to stop looking for answers."

I dropped my eyes away from the intensity of his gaze, my heart lurching.

I clutched the papers in my hand and left the office. I could feel the hope in my fingertips. This would the the last time that I would have to go to this station.

Eight times.

I had tried baked goods, crying, everything. I did everything in my power to get a hold of these documents.

I threw open the front cover and was greeted with a picture of him. We were identical twins, so naturally we shared the same features.

His hair was a light, honey color, and his eyes were the same green as mine. My heart let out a heave, the next page was the report that must of been filed that night. I skimmed the information, desperate for something new, anything to give me closure. The accident report looked the same as the details I already knew. The red car they were driving, how everyone in the car had some level of intoxication, how my brother died upon impact.

On the next page there was witnesses. I sat up a little straighter. A list of people who spent my brothers last minutes with him. Logan Brooks was the first contact on the list, and next to him a phone number.

Next was Jacob Wilson, I vaugely remember him as my brothers section leader who graduated last year.

I threw the case file in the front seat compartment. My head was throbbing as if someone was drumming on it.

Closure is the most unattainable rhythm, and it's the only beat I'm interested in hearing.