Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 134

                ‘I’m glad they found each other,’ I say. ‘ Especially Yates. He deserved a slice of happiness.’

                Elle scrunches her lips. Just for a second, but long enough for me to see.

                ‘What’s wrong?’

                ‘We can’t keep skirting around the issue.’ She sighs. ‘Have you been to London lately? They’re having a resurgence in the search effort. He’s a missing person, he’s not supposed to be dead.’

                I remember picking up a newspaper the week after our adventures after I died.

 

TEEN TRASHES ROOM AND DISAPPEARS

 

ABDUCTION OR A BRAT?

 

                We’d even seen Graham’s parents, crying their eyes out of television, begging their son to come home. They’d always loved him, he’d just be wrapped too tightly in insecurities to see it. He read it as something untrustworthy.

                ‘Remember those tabloids?’ I ask.

                Elle nods. Graham locked himself in his room for a week after they came out. Scores of people from school saying he’d had a tantrum and run away. A flurry of anti-teenager reports across the bright, loud newspaper pages with venom in the columns.

                ‘I don’t know what he expected,’ Elle says. ‘People see through lies.’

                Elle never approved of Graham staying dead. She wouldn’t say anything though, she was happy Yates was happy too.

                ‘It’s just a joke,’ she says. She bites her lip, takes a breath and starts to say something but thinks twice. It takes her a moment to continue. ‘People get life taken from them every day. They struggle to hold onto it. Graham had nothing wrong with him, nothing. And he just swans around like it’s the best thing that ever happened to him. It’s…it’s not fair.’

                I look at her. The pink hair. The summer dress I know so well now. She puts her foot up on the table in front of us. A heavy clunk to communicate her distaste.

                ‘I just like to see people appreciate what they’re given,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to see a rich boy tantrum as a reason to throw his life away.’

                ‘He was bullied a lot,’ I offer.

                ‘And how much did he bring on himself?’

                I nod. It’s true. Graham pushes people because he feels like his dad undermined everything he ever said.

                ‘We’ll make him see sense,’ I say. ‘Have you seen his face every time his parents are on TV these days? He used to look smug, but nowadays, I don’t know, I think there’s regret there.’