Don’t know what to write.

Going to eat Chinese food, yum.

Noodles for days, and

Going to work soon.

Have to face the day,

Or four hours.

Four hours is not a lot, but its money,

And any money is good money

For me.

Listening to music

As if I’m shopping for clothes I can afford,

But I have a thrift store budget,

Which isn’t frowned upon these days,

So it’s good enough for me.

The words stared back at me, as blank as my mind had been when trying to write them. That’s all I could come up with, and I took a semester course on creative poetry writing.Perhaps I wasn’t the English major I acclaimed to be. I sat at the computer chair and debated on whether to delete the terrible poem or save it just for laughs. Before my finger could hit the delete button, however, I heard a knock at the door.

I thought it was a solicitor and had made up my mind to ignore it, until a voice at the other end of the door called out, “Ms. Mendez, Ms. Mendez, are you home? We’d like to speak to you!”

I wasn’t sure who would visit me on my day off on a Tuesday afternoon, and was hesitant to open the door, even if the person at the other end knew my last name.

“Hello, Ms. Mendez?Is anyone home?” the voiced called again, followed by a series of knocks.

I walked to the front door and opened the door a crack, as wide as the deadbolt allowed. I was faced with two middle aged men wearing business attire, one with a white collared shirt and black slacks, and the other with a beige collar and gray slacks.

“Ms. Mendez? Lila Mendez?” the man with the white shirt asked

“Yes, that’s me. What is this about?”

The man with the beige shirt pulled out what appeared to be a police badge from his pants pocket.

“I am detective Munro, and this is my partner, detective Johnson. We are with the San Jose police department, and we wanted to speak to you about your roommate, Jenna Slauson. May we come in?”

“Uh, yes that’s fine, come in.” I opened the deadbolt and allowed the detectives to come in. I wasn’t sure what my roommate had done to elicit a visit from two detectives. Did she land in jail and need bail money? I led them to my tiny living room, and they settled on the red, somewhat out dated armchairs, while I sat across from them on the gray couch.

“What is this about, detectives? What happened to Jenna?”

They exchanged a quick glance before detective Johnson spoke.

“There’s no easy way to say this, Ms. Mendez, but Jenna was found dead in a hotel room in Hayward two nights ago."

There was a slight pause as I allowed the words detective Johnson said to sink in.

“Jenna’s dead? H-How did she die? She was supposed to be in L.A for a week. Why-why was she in Hayward?” I could barely get the words out and decided to look at the red armrest that detective Johnson’s arm rested on, so he couldn’t see my eyes as they began to tear.

“We're not sure, ma'am. We found her luggage and I.D in the room. Her body was found stuffed under the hotel bed, and it also appears that her throat was slit. We have some pictures of her body.” Detective Munro preceded to show me photos from the crime scene.

I could only stomach three photos before I turned my head and put my hand up to signal I had seen enough. The photos did not depict the girl I had lived with for the past two years. Her fair skin was cold and waxen; her blonde hair appeared unkempt and matted with blood, and her face bloated. Although the physical features were there, the body in the photographs did not remotely reflect the woman that was Jenna Slauson. Her bubbly yet strong personality, her laugh that carried across the room, and her warm hazel eyes were not reflected in the crime scene photos.

The detectives then went through the routine questions I always heard in detective shows. Did she have any enemies, anyone who wanted to hurt her? Was she seeing anyone?Had she been acting differently, did she seem more fearful, more worried for her safety? All the answers were no, but my mind glazed over the detective's questions as I began to have questions of my own.

I sat slumped on the gray couch after the detectives left, holding detective Munro’s card in my left hand. I contemplated the same questions in my head. Who would hurt Jenna? She didn’t have any one who wanted to kill her, that was for sure. Was it a date gone wrong? Jenna usually had good intuition, and she wouldn’t hesitate to leave if something didn’t feel right. Maybe that’s what she tried to do, and it still ended badly. And why was she in the bay area three days early?

Her poor parents, and her little brother, how were they taking this devastating news? I was on that couch for hours, and the need to find out how and why Jenna died increased with every minute.