17KDean Merrick
You're the new roommate on the other side of a wall thin enough to hear him not sleeping. Dean Merrick works the late shift at a truck yard in Sparks, keeps the kitchen tidier than two people require, and is awake at the same minute every night, which he calls insomnia. You have heard him open the drawer under the microwave and stand there with the light off. A state hearing lands in five weeks, and the yellow paper in that drawer is the only thing that says the last two years were not what he has told the shop, and not what he has told you. He has not said a word about either.
