Footprints in Your Heart

Kai: Dominoes

The Earth is about to pass the same point in the universe it was at when my mum left our family seven orbits ago, and it's today my dad decides to move to the other side of the country.

'I'm getting started with the new corporation on Friday, so we need to...Kai.' A pause, a shifting of weight forward. 'Are you there?'

'Yeah,' I mumble, phone under my cheek as I half-heartedly try to stop a notebook avalanche from my locker. 'It's just...this is a lot to take in.' They cascade like dominoes, flipping open in a sea of paper and ink.

'I know,' my dad presses. 'But this is important. There have been some really interesting cases in the area and the firm has offered me an opportunity I can't-'

'Dad, wait, I don't understand. We've been here our entire lives,' my little sister Isla interrupts. Even over the laggy three-way voice call we have, I can see her mentally running through all the fragments she's picked up from living here; all the memories, all the people, all the familiarity. Klento means so much to her as a birthplace, as a home. Everyone has different ways of holding on. Some people hold onto the feelings, but others hold onto the pieces - that's Isla, and she wouldn't be the same person without it.

My sister is still talking. 'How could you just uproot us like this? We can't move so - so soon. And what about Mum...?' she realises her mistake and trails off too late as I hold my breath. We don't – we can't – mention our mother in front of our dad. Every time we do, it's the gust of another puff of wind into a balloon which is already straining from the pressure of an entire atmosphere.

Heavy static over the line, a controlled inhale. 'Your mother is...' he continues, but suddenly my attention is elsewhere as I spot a pair of orange colour blocked sneakers walking towards me from far down the corridor, to the left of my locker door, stopping, and then moving again. Yep, that's Milo.

I can't let my best friend catch me on a call with my family talking about leaving him potentially forever while we're supposed to be working on our mural together. Deterministically, I'm going to explain this whole situation to him without my confused dad and sister on the phone, and preferably while we're munching on Tiny Teddies over a deep and reflective conversation about life. Determinism isn't meant to be broken.

Leaving my locker door hanging, I focus on the seeping cold of metal against my spine as I edge away with a hand clamped over my phone. 'Kai?' I hear Milo say from concerningly close by, just as I feel vibrations through my hand and my dad says, 'Kai, are you listening to me?'

I sprint for the other end of the corridor and, passing a collection of weather-worn gnomes, take a sharp right to the abandoned garden that nobody seems to remember exists anymore. Milo knows about it, but I'm hoping he checks our other eleven hiding places before this one.

'Yes...I'm. I'm here,' I say into my phone as I slide my back down a brick wall, trying not to sound like I just ran halfway across the school. 'What were we saying?'

'Kai, can you tell him?' Isla says. She sounds close to tears, and my heart melts into a puddle of angry raincloud which I imagine evaporating and drenching my dad from head to toe. 'We've been in Klento forever, we can't leave now.'

There's the tap of fingers on keys, presumably an article my dad's writing up - journalism is a never-ending game, or at least the way he says it. 'I'm really sorry, kids. I wish it could be different, but... sometimes forever has to change. Love you. We'll talk soon.'

A few moments later, the call cuts out before I can say anything and the only sound I hear is the rise and fall of chatter as students start heading back to class. I sigh as I turn on my heel and walk back down the path, leaves in every shade of orange crunching underfoot.