It takes a hard push with my shoulder to get the door open, and I kick it closed. I drop all of my books on the big table against the wall next to the door and whip it back open to snatch off the notice. I sit next to the books on the table when the door closes again and read this stupid piece of paper over and over. 

Nobody knew about this room. Everyone forgot about it. This room, this class, this club. 

Room 104 is where photography used to be, but it’s been discontinued for many, many years. It was an elective, a filler class like Art or Band. “It just didn’t have enough interested kids” is what they say in the office. That’s a lie. 

Everyone here at Linor Prep knows it’s because the teacher was a whack job from Kentucky that got caught running some weird illegal chicken breeding business out of his basement and got termed for making the club help him while masking it under club activities. Well, technically they were doing club activities, just not safe, legal, or otherwise ethical ones. 

After all of that, no teacher wanted to take over in case there were still some loose ends, and no student wanted to be a part of a club that would forever be known for something so ridiculous. 

They held on for as long as they could. Two years later, the last members of the club graduated, and there was no one left to run it. The club was disbanded, forgotten, and the room along with it. 

Some say 104 is haunted by the ghosts of the chickens. Some say it’s got bad juju or something. Both ideas are plain stupid, but I’ve been using that to my advantage. 

The universe loves to show me that being alone is a good thing; it’s right for me. 104 is perfect for that. It’s much better than the second-floor bathroom I used to skip in. Too crowded now with freshmen using the window ledge to huddle up and choke on those disgustingly expensive vape sticks. 

104 is all I’ve got, and now the student council wants to take it away.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and text Armin to get to 104 ASAP. Not “as soon as possible.” A-S-A-P. 

How could he keep this a secret? No, how could Armin even let this happen in the first place? This space has been just as good to him as it has to me. 

Armin doesn’t respond to my message, but he does like it, so I know he read it. He must be in a class. 

That’s fine. It gives me enough time to pace around this room and grumble about how messed up this is, try to get out all of my frustration before Armin gets here so I can be calm and rational. 

I trace my fingers over the desks as I walk past them to the shelves with archived photographs. I start pulling them out of their boxes and wiping them off with my sleeve, pulling more of the old pictures I’ve already looked at a million times and leaving them in a pile one by one when I finish with them. 

There’s something about the art of those that came before me that keeps me coming back. Something about them that makes me feel soft and dreamy like the pictures of sunsets and beaches and black and white stills of busy Pittsburgh streets. I could do this forever. If only I had forever.