Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 12

But no one looks at me. They’re all interested in their own thing and I can see it now.
I walk over, standing a little taller than my schoolboy self. I remember shooting up about a foot in year seven. The fuss Mum and Dad made over their little man comes back to me before I can stop it.

My stomach clenches. Do Mum and Dad know yet? Do they know their son died barely an hour ago? I have to visit them. As soon as I find out how to get back to the present, I’ll go and see them, as painful as that might be. Even just to sit with them in the living room while they watched the TV, knowing I should have done it more often when I was alive.

My eyes become hot so I force myself to think about something else.

I see my former self inch towards Graham and Yasmine.

Move! I will myself, actually wafting my arms back and forth like I could speed myself along. Be a man, for God’s sake.

It’s frustrating but I know this day ends good so I just stand and watch.

Still I look at Penny. Her hair, short and choppy, soon to turn long and curly as the years go by. That freckle by her nose that I always like to kiss. The way she tugs on the cuffs of her sleeves, because I know it gives her comfort.

How do I even get out of here? I wonder. I close my eyes and will myself to move again, for the woods to change and be anywhere else. I scrunch up my fists, and concentrate hard but nothing changes. It looks like I’ll just have to let this play out and see where it takes me. Maybe I can gather some clue as to where on earth she may have gone.

In the end she looks up. She looks surprised like no one’s seen her sitting there in a while.

‘Hi,’ she says.

‘Hey,’ I reply.

I grow impatient watching two awkward teenagers and wish I could give either of us a helpful nudge. I realise that I can revisit all the moments in my past when I wasn’t as confident as I should have been and be powerless to change them.  

I see myself cast helplessly around for an interesting topic of conversation. I remember fancying her in a different way to anything I’ve experienced. I was young and this is the girl who would become my first and only love.

            The sadness is inescapable and I sit down myself on Penny’s other side, knowing what I would do next.