Unseen

-20-

James' eyes are still as pitiful as they were five minutes ago, so I decide to leave the living room. I need to walk, to move, to be able to push all this agony that is choking me. I need to leave it behind. I need to clear my mind but if I keep seeing how James looks at me, as if he is desperate to do something, then I won't be able to activate my defence mechanism. So what I do is walk up to Mum's room. I haven't seen the urn in the living room so if she keeps my ashes, they aren't here. The only other place I can think of is her room, even if that is a little creepy but then again, Mum is depressed so maybe it's not that weird in her state.

I know he's following me, I can hear his footstep although they are not exactly stepping on my tail. He is close, I feel that. Somehow, I can feel his presence behind me. I don't say a thing, I keep walking until I'm in front of the door, only then I open my mouth.

"This is Mum's room. I think that maybe she keeps the ashes here."

"If you were cremated. We're not sure about that just yet," he reminds me and I turn to look at him over my shoulder with a blank expression. "Don't look at me like that. It's not that crazy. Maybe you're not even dead, maybe you're just in coma or something."

"I don't think that's very likely," I say but I can see in his expression how much he hopes what he's saying is true. I see that in his eyes, the intensity of it throws me off and makes me feel bad for blowing up his bubble. "If I were in coma my mum would spend all her time at the hospital, next to me. But she finishes work and comes here and never leaves unless it's extremely necessary," I explain to him but it doesn't seem like he wants to give up.

"Maybe she's not at work and spends all day with you at the hospital. You don't know if she actually goes to work. Or maybe she just can't be twenty-four-seven at the hospital, right?"

"Don't you think I would feel drawn towards the hospital if that were the case?" I ask but I really feel a lump in my stomach because I can see how his expression falls.

Why does it seem that this affects him more than it affects me?

"I'm sorry, James, but I really don't think that theory makes sense. I'm super dead and I'll find my ashes."

"Don't say it like that," he pleads but I just shake my head and focus on opening the door, ignoring that little jab in my heart that tells me to comfort him. Right now I'm not in the mood to do something.

Mum's room used to be bright and always smelled like roses, but now it's a room where someone sleeps at night. It feels abandoned and kind of broken. She rarely opens the curtains and I always feel so miserable when I'm in here. It's not a big room so James barely takes a step inside when I spot it. I don't know why I never noticed it before, but it's there.

An urn.

My ashes. I'm sure of it.

Where there's used to be just pictures of me now there's an urn with a picture of me when I was like fifteen. I am smiling in the picture, happy. I'm not sure when that happened but I think it was a day out with my family, escaping from here and everyone that hurt me. That was probably why I was so happy in that picture. And that is probably why Mum has that picture next to my urn.

I walk up to it, slowly and feeling scared because I don't know what will happen when I touch it. What if I cross over the moment I touch the urn? What if it hurts like when I walk through someone? That is why I hesitate in front of the urn, not sure of what to do. James even catches up to me, standing by my side. Instantly, I move a bit to the left, away from him just in case we might accidentally touch.

"You think this is it?" he asks out loud and I take a deep breath.

"Positive," I breathe out.

"But maybe it can-"