Hey guys. This is a story previously taken down from my page due to need of explicit editing. Now that that's done, please enjoy!

- Gabs

Somewhere around August and September I usually get my first cold of the year. It's around the time when the weather is very unpredictable, one day you're wearing your favourite knitted sweater and the next day you're in shorts. I always make the grave mistake of dressing accordingly and not bothering to find a balance, hence my yearly cold. Trying to explain this to my forgein roommate was like trying to convince your parents to let you stay home from school, she had an input of her own.

"The weather?" She said, pulling the blinds up in my bedroom, the bright light striking my eyes like a laser gun. "....Well, today it is cold, tomorrow it might be warm, who knows in this country?"

My roommate's name is Francesca Bagnaia, a forein exchange student from Rome, Italy. Except for majoring in economics, Francesca is a talented singer with a lovely voice. Just three months in this country and she had already joined a band. They rehearsed every other day and played gigs all over the city every weekend. A pretty hectic life for a major in economics. I could never imagine myself in her shoes, perhaps it explains my lack of an actual social life. Franseca is always the one telling me to get out more, to join her band while they tour around the city, however, I question the sketchy locations they often end up playing at, like low life irish pubs or someone promoting the moonshine business they have in their garage.

"What are you thinking about?" Fransceca said, tilting her head so that I don't have to look at her upside down as I lay crumpled up in my bed.

"I'm trying to understand why you are doing this to me?"

"Oh come on, basta. It's time to rise and shinnnne!" She sings, her falsette bouncing off the roof of our two bedroom apartment.

"I don't want to rise and shine Francesca, I'm telling you, I really don't feel that well."

"Really?" She stops at the frame of my door.

"Really." I assure her.

"Alright, you stay put then and I'll go make you a delicious chicken soup."

"That's more like it." I said, pulling the covers over my face and slipping down underneath it. I am soon back to sleep.

Around four o'clock in the afternoon, Francesca came back from school, by then I was crumbled up on the living room sofa. I had the television to comfort me while I battled my nasty cold.

"Are you still feeling I'll?" Franseca asked as she carried a bag of groceries into the kitchen. I must say that despite the two bedrooms, our apartment was fairly small, there were no walls separating the living room from the kitchen and from where I lay on the couch, I had a good view of the bathroom. Franseca often left the door ajar, which I hated.

"Can't you see." I groaned. "One stroke of this cough and I'm sure I'll have a heart attack."

"That's too bad." Fransceacas head hung low as she moved towards the fridge where she stacked up the groceries. Just the way she said it made me raise my head, looking over the edge of the sofa.

"What's the matter with you?"

Francesca's smile was timid, masking an underlying sorrow. "Well I told you that my brother was visiting. I invited him to stay with us, but now that you're sick....I guess it's not happening."

"You have a brother?" I said very selfishly. "Why am I the last to know? Is he cute?"

Francesca rolled her eyes. "Yes, I have a brother and I told you all about his visit last week, but I guess you were on your deathbed back then too?"

"I'm sorry, I must have been elsewhere." I coughed. "But your brother is staying here, how would that work out for us?"

"It wouldn't, wouldn't it?" She chuckled. "At least not now that you've spread your germs all over the sofa."

"Hey?" I frowned.

"Not to worry." She smiled. Franseca had a beautiful smile, all of her was beautiful. Whenever we would walk in the street guys would turn their heads, some of them even dared to approach and ask for her number. But as polite as she was, Franseca would always reject them. I imagined she did this to be polite towards me, since I would always end up standing there eyeing the exchange. However, I recently began noticing a pattern in the types of guys she would bring to the apartment after a night out or after a gig. They'd look like forty-year old men, forty-year old men with many tattoos up their sleeves, some of them even wore thick mustaches. To imagine a woman like Francesca going to bed with a fellow like that made me question her very standards in men.

"I'll ask if some of the guys could offer my brother a bed. We're rehearsing our set for this weekend."

"This weekend? Where are you playing?"

Francesca shrugs. "Some old bar, Seamus knows some people."

"Right, Seamus." I mumbled. "Is he like your partner? Isn't the guy like forty?"

"Seamus? He's only thirty-seven."

"Right." I said skeptically.

"Have you never heard the term Age is but a number."

"I have. I coined that term whenever we would get a hot substitute in class when I went to middle school, but thirty-seven ...." I paused for comedic purposes. "...Is a bit too high of a number for me." It worked, Franaseca laughed on her way to her bedroom.

*******

"Yes Mama, I had all the chicken soup... Francesca? She went out.... Because she can Mama, she doesn't have to babysit me.... Alright, I'll talk to you later.... Love you too, bye."

Coming off the phone, I let it slip right out of my hand and on to the fury mat we had covering the living room floor. Francesca's choice of course, saying it reminded her of a romantic evening in front of a fire. She insisted, despite me telling her that no open fires were allowed in an apartment like ours.

I had just fallen into a light slumber when there was a tug at the handle to the front door. Still flourished with a fever, I didn't have the strength to respond to whomever wanted to be let in and besides, anyone that belonged in this apartment had a key, right?

After what I thought to be a split second, I went to open my eyes again, only to be met by a pair of striking green ones staring back at me.

"Is she okay? She looks ill." A stranger's voice said. I was half awake, my surroundings still coming off as very cloudy at the time.

"She is. Now, back away from the sofa before you frighten her." Francesca's familiar voice said. It was all a bit blurry at the time, I must have gone back to sleep after that, because when I went to open my eyes again, the apartment was dark and empty, no Francesca and no pair of striking green eyes staring back at my soul.