I sense the lurch in my stomach,
the feeling of being upside down on a rollercoaster and concentrate on it. I
try to convince myself that it will never end. He might be lost on here
forever. I hope that it’s my memories, and my memories won’t let that happen to
a person.
‘Help!’
A muffled voice in the darkness.
Like it’s speaking through a thin wall. I recognize the voice and my heart
leaps in my chest. Almost immediately, the voice dies away with the excitement.
Excitement is not where Yates will have landed. Where would excitement take us?
The first time Dad took me to a comic book shop, my first real date with Penny,
the first time I splashed in the sea.
Part of me doesn’t want to know
where Yates is. There are some memories that none of us want to see again. I
concentrate on the fear again. Now fear that I won’t be able to find Yates.
That I’ve condemned him to this.
‘Let me out!’
The voice is clearer this time,
as though we’re in a crowd and he’s a few people away.
Fear, fear, falling, fear. I am
never getting out of here.
‘Easton?’
I realise that I’ve been
squeezing my eyes shut. I don’t know for how long, it’s hard to know when it’s
dark already.
My head throbs slightly with the
effort.
‘Yates!’ I say, relieved to hear
his voice.
I look down slightly. He wasn’t
that short before.
‘Please let me out.’ His voice
cracks. A higher pitch than before. The same voice but ever so slightly
different.
I stare at him. The fuzz on his
lip has gone, and several inches hang loose on his clothes. He looks like a boy
who’s tried on his father’s clothes. His eyes are puffy and wet and a trail of
snot drips from one nostril.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Whatever
I did, I’m sorry, just don’t punish me anymore.’
He sniffs again and I don’t know
what to do. He’s slipped again, slipped into a much younger self. He much be
nine or ten.
‘I were going to help me,’ he
says. ‘And I don’t know where I am.’
I look around, quite worried,
because neither do I.
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