Inhale [DNF]

- 2 -

The Village Sun was a small newspaper company that wasn't as big as the New York Times, but provided accurate, unbiased information. I was lucky to have landed the internship, and even luckier to be getting paid for my work. I would mainly be staying in the office, proofreading and editing the stories, but I knew that eventually I would be allowed out in the field.

My boss, Mr. Hienzman, was a short and stout man that looked almost like a very angry teapot. His eyebrows sort of curled and dipped into the bridge of his nose, and his neck was large and beefy. His eyes were the most unsettling about the mans stature—they were a crystal green, but shrouded by his bushy eyebrows, they seemed to stare into my soul. Despite this, he was a fairly nice man, and gave me a tour around the office before showing me to my desk.

"So, Greg," he started. I corrected him.

"It's George—George Davidson." Mr. Heinzman stared back at me blankly before continuing.

"Okay, George, what are you doing in school? Tell me a bit about yourself, yeah?"

"Oh. Well, I spoke to you during the interview...I'm an exchange student from London, I'm majoring in Political Journalism. It's my last year." I desperately glanced around the office, searching for something to distract myself with. I hated small talk.

"You drink?"

"Sorry?"

"Do you drink? Every Friday night we head out and place a bet for the week and whoever loses has to buy everyone a round of drinks. There's not point in including you in this weeks bet if you don't drink,"

I was confused as to how we had moved from the topic so quickly, but I suppose I wasn't entirely accustomed to the way Americans think and talk. Even just hearing Mr. Heinzman's accent was confusing to me.

"I mean, yeah I'll drink sometimes." I finally replied.

"Great, great. Well, anyways. You'll get paid every other week, it'll go into your direct deposit form we filled out earlier. The job itself is pretty self explanatory, just review and edit the stories and if they're decent you send 'em my way, yeah? Alright. Get yourself situated, Johnson'll have his articles over to you in a minute." He clapped his hands together and took off to his personal office, clambering down the hall like a disgruntled bull.

I guess my job could've been worse, but there's nothing more boring that sitting at a desk reading article after article, looking for spelling errors. It was just an internship though, so what could I expect?

My first classes would start tomorrow, and if nobody had moved into the other bedroom by the time I got back tonight, I'd have to assume I'd be living alone until September.

It wasn't all that bad. I mean, the first week went pretty well. My things from my mom had arrived pretty quickly, and almost everything I'd ordered off Amazon had gotten to the post office a few days ago. The apartment felt distant, but it felt like home. Plus, I'd grown up  as an only child so the loneliness of the empty rooms was all too familiar.

A taller man swaggered over to the desk I was sitting at and placed a small stack of papers in front of me. He stuck his hand out expectantly.

"I'm Lee. You're that British kid, right? The new intern?" He asked. I could smell entitled-rich-white-man wafting off of him. I nodded. "Cool, cool. Everyone calls me Johnson. All I need you to do is just edit the articles before you give 'em to Heinzman."

"Why do you all need an intern to edit your papers?" I finally asked curiously. I'd been wondering why they couldn't just review their own articles before submitting them.

"I mean, you gotta get a fresh set of eyes. I'm here to write and interview, not edit. I just get the information, you tell me if it sounds fuckin' stupid, and then we turn it in. You never do peer review in school?"

"No, not really. Uh...so I guess I'll just start reading these." I nodded towards the papers he'd given me.

"Yeah kid, you're basically getting paid 15 dollars and hour to read newspapers and fix grammar mistakes. I'd take your job in a heartbeat." Johnson nudged my shoulder before starting to walk away, back to the desk he'd came from.

Reluctantly, I picked up the first paper and scanned it quickly, noticing nothing out of the ordinary. Boring, yes, but easy. Within the hour, I'd read through four long articles that would be distributed through the papers over the next week. There was also the nice benefit to it, where it would say Written by Lee Johnson, Edited by George Davidson. I smiled thoughtlessly.

I returned home that night at 8, collapsing into the couch. I was a naturally tired person, so it wasn't exactly hard to get me exhausted. I didn't realize that there were numerous new things scattered around the apartment, but I heard an unknown voice from down the hall, laughing loudly with someone who was on speakerphone. I sat up and made my way to the other bedroom, knocking on the door cautiously.

The boy who answered the door was taller than me, but it seemed like nowadays, everyone was. He had long, messy black hair and a white bandana that kept it up out of his face. I noticed a few piercings here and there, and an orange and black tattoo that peeked out from under his sleeve. His build reminded me of that of a football player.

"Oh, hey, my roommate's home," he said to the person on the other end of the call. "I'll call you right back." He hung up and shoved the phone into the pocket, smiling to me awkwardly.

"I'm George," I finally said, sticking my hand out.

"Nick, but you can call me Sapnap. Everyone calls me Sapnap." We shook hands.

"So you have summer classes too, then?" I asked. Sapnap nodded.

"Yea, I gotta take a couple math classes to be able to graduate in May."

We stood in silence for a minute before I turned and headed into my room.

"I hope you don't mind that I play guitar," I nodded over to my instrument that sat so delicately on its stand.

"Nah, totally not. I play the drums, so I guess we're even. I got mufflers though. I won't bother you."

That's cool I guess.

Sapnap retreated to his room and was almost instantly back on the phone he'd been on before. I shut my door and fell onto my bed. I had an 8 AM lecture in the morning—Sleep was the only thing I needed right now.