The Great Between

Same Day Tomorrow

Max checks the letterbox every morning on her way back from feeding Gerald's chickens and every morning, she stomps up the steps, empty-handed and grouchy. There has been no response to the card I sent Leo (or, technically, that Max sent Leo). I am beginning to think he'll never reply, when Max comes in about a week after Easter, skipping down the hallway with an envelope in her hand.

'He replied, Stella!' she sings, waving the envelope in my face. 'He actually replied!'

She pushes the envelope into my hands and I hold it for a moment, bracing myself. It is a thin white envelope with my name and address on the front, written in thick black capital letters. I don't recognise the handwriting and there's no return address. Max bobs up and down on the spot as I carefully tear it open.

The letter inside is folded in half about five times, so it falls out of the envelope as a tiny square of paper. My hands shake as I unfold it and I take a deep breath before I start reading.

'It was the winter I turned eighteen and the world felt like it was ending. More than it usually did, anyway. I decided to skip school and go down to the coast and she agreed to go with me...'

'Oh no,' Max says, examining my reaction. 'Scowling is not a good sign.'

I shove the paper into Max's hand and wait as she reads it, tapping my hand against my knee as I wait.

'What the fuck is this?' Max asks, still squinting at it. She slumps onto the bed beside me, all her bouncy excitement drained by the letter.

'It's a short story,' I say again.

'I can fucking see that,' she says, waving the page around erratically. 'This is bullshit.'

And it is bullshit. I was so sure this would be Leo's reply. I check the envelope again. It's definitely my address, but this can't be for me. Maybe they wanted the people who lived here before us. This must be a mistake. Who would send me a short story written in bright green ink, with no context or signature or return address?

'I feel like I've read this before,' I tell Max. 'There's something really weirdly familiar about it. Not the story, but the way it's written. I can't pick it.'

Max takes her phone out of her pocket, her head shaking rhythmically. 'We need an outside opinion. I'm going to call Leo.'

I keep reading for a second before her words sink in.

'No, you're not! This is nothing to do with him.'

I don't know where it comes from, but the thought of bringing Leo into this freaks me out and I panic, reaching over to swat the phone from her hands. We struggle over it and in the tangle of our fingers, someone presses 'Call'. We both drop the phone. It sits on Max's doona and we're frozen for a moment, the dial tone ringing out between us.

'Hi?' Leo's voice is quiet and tinny through the phone. I smother it with the doona so Max can't talk to Leo, whose voice is garbled like he's underwater.

Max glares at me for a second and whispers, 'What are you doing?'

'We'll just freak him out.'

'The only one freaking out is you,' Max snaps. Her eyes are wild and she's close to falling off the bed, sitting awkwardly after our scramble.

'Max,' I plead.

She struggles back onto the middle of the bed and I hang up the phone. We'll have to give Leo some excuse for our weird call later.

'You hung up on Leo again,' she says simply. 'That makes twice in a week. That's some kind of record.'

It's a record I had hoped Max wouldn't notice I've set.