Andrew had been my older brothers (Tom) best friend before Tom was killed in a car accident two years ago. After Tom’s death both of us had started to go down hill fast. My life had been destroyed as far as I was concerned. Tom had been the only person in my life that had supported me when I came out to my family. My parents hadn’t thrown me out of the house as such but they certainly didn’t rejoice when I told them. But Tom had listened to me, he was there when I needed relationship advice and he had even come shopping with me to find something to wear for my first date with a guy.

I’m not sure how Andrew handled Tom’s death but he didn’t look very healthy for months after. He lost weight and went from the tall muscular confident and friendly guy I new to a pasty frail frame. I should probably tell you that before my brother died I had a huge crush on Andrew; to me he was the embodiment of a god. He looked sort of like the guys from the Calvin Klein underwear ads and had the reputation to match. But it wasn’t just his face and body that attracted me; he paid attention to me in a way that nobody ever had before. It was like I was the only person in the world that mattered when he spoke to me and it was so cute watching him talk when he got excited about something. The way he could talk so animatedly about something so little. But nothing ever happened between us because Andrew wasn’t gay and I begged my brother not to tell him about me in case his attitude towards me changed.

After my brother died I sort of forgot about my crush on Andrew and we became friends. You’d think it would have made it awkward being around each other when both of us had such strong connections to Tom but it wasn’t. He was my life raft and I don’t think either of us would have survived the past couple of years without each other.

I hadn’t seen Andrew for a few months because after having a year off after high school, mainly because of Tom, he had departed for college. We both had finally been able to find a relatively free weekend that suited the both of us and I was going to go and stay with him at his dorm so we could catch up. We had organized for me to arrive early Saturday but I’d been able to get someone to cover my Friday shift at work so I thought I might drive up that night and surprise him.

As I drove into the campus main car park I leaned across and fiddled around in the glove compartment for the piece of paper I had written Andrew’s room details down on. Parking, I stepped out of the car and followed the signs to Andrew’s building. He had warned me not to make a big deal of my being there because the campus co-coordinators preferred guests to stay elsewhere when visiting alumni but there were only a few people scattered around and nobody took much notice of me. I scanned the corridor as I walked down it looking for Andrew’s number. I saw it ahead and approached the door and knocked a couple of times.

I heard something thump as though it had been dropped then some shuffling sounds before the door swung open. If I had forgotten