The Anatomy of Almost (Jamilton)

Chapter 2: The Hill, The Haze, and Herc

There's something strangely calming about the chaos of a dorm room.

Clothes half-folded, textbooks cracked open like corpses, the hum of someone else's playlist bleeding through the drywall, this was my sanctuary. Organized in the way only the mentally disorganized could appreciate. Welcome to The Hill.

Our dorm building stood like a relic, weathered brick and ancient creaks, perched on the western edge of campus like it was trying to avoid being seen. Each dorm had its own "theme" assigned by the university. Ours was Politics & Social Change. Which was ironic, considering the only revolution I was waging lately was getting out of bed before 10 a.m.

The halls always smelled like instant ramen, old paint, and someone's bad choices from the night before. Posters lined the walls, half torn and faded: "Student Union Protest Tuesday!" "Consent is Mandatory!" "Vote for Elise!" The Hill tried to be woke, but it mostly just napped through real activism.

My room was small, boxy, and had the aesthetic of a Craigslist freebie ad. The bed creaked when I sat on it. The desk wobbled if you breathed too hard. The window didn't open all the way, and the heater made a noise like it was dying slowly but didn't want to be rude about it.

But it was home for now.

Hercules was already sprawled across his bed when I got back, legs hanging off the edge, one sock on, scrolling endlessly. Roommate, best friend, chaos twin. The kind of friend who shows up uninvited and eats half your fries but somehow makes everything feel like less of a mess.

"You kicked Jefferson in the nuts?" he asked, like I'd just told him I ran into God at the vending machine.

I dropped my bag and face-planted into my mattress. "You saw it?"

"Sweetheart, it's on Joust. It's got three remixes already. One of them has trap drums. Pretty sure someone auto-tuned your 'Some of us have balls too' line."

I groaned into my pillow.

"Honestly?" Herc said, tossing his phone onto the nightstand. "It was kind of iconic. Jefferson deserved it. Always thought his balls were too high up on that moral high horse anyway."

He always said that when it came to Thomas. He knew the headlines but not the full story. I never gave him the whole thing. Some chapters aren't meant to be read aloud. Not yet.

I rolled onto my back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling that looked like a Rorschach test for the emotionally unstable.

"He's not the same," I murmured. "Something about him... I don't know."

"Still tall, still broody, still a dick. What's new?"

I cracked a smile. It faded just as quick.

"You ever wonder if the past is supposed to stay buried?" I asked.

Herc glanced over, his usual smirk softening. "Sometimes the past is a grave, and sometimes it's a garden," he said. "You just have to figure out what the fuck you planted."

I let his words hang in the air, heavy and unwanted.

"You're too wise for someone who cried over a broken nail last week," I muttered.

"Self-care is sacred, bitch."

By the time sunset melted across campus, Lafayette had already blown up my phone with texts.

Laf: bring ur pretty face to my place tonight

Laf: drinks, music, bad decisions

Laf: u owe me social interaction