Chapter 7: Søren's First Note

The note was on his pillow when he came back from washing his face.

Not beside the pillow, not tucked under the edge of the mattress — on it, placed with a precision that suggested it had been set there deliberately rather than dropped or slid, the fold crisp and intentional in the way of something meant to be found in a particular way. He stood in the doorway of the dormitory room for a moment before entering, the way he always stood in doorways — cataloguing first, committing after — and he looked at the white square of folded paper and felt, running along the undersides of his arms, the very specific unease of having been inside a space he had not occupied.

He crossed to his bed. He sat down. He picked up the note.