Split

Work Experience

I had willed the time away, having to wait three months before we were asked to get work experience, and it went by excruciatingly painfully.
I hadn't visited the zoo since I'd left becasue of what Barry had said; I could see him when 'all this calms down'. I'd left it long enough, and with an excuse to visit it was the perfect time to go. I hoped that Barry was still working there and that I'd find him fairly quickly, I'd hate to have to spend the two weeks searching for nothing...
But I had hope. There was a high chance that I was going to see them again and I could hardly wait.

On my first day I woke up early, and by early I mean four in the morning; I couldn't stay in bed knowing where I'd be in a few hours.
I hurried to get my things together long before I needed to leave, and got there half an hour early. The woman who showed me round said that she loved how keen I was and that she hoped I'd be just as enthusiastic with the work too.
She walked me round and explained what I was going to be doing, then left me with another woman who I was to shadow for the rest of the day called Debbie.
I was disappointed that I hadn't seen any signs of Barry yet, but I kept an eye out for the rest of the morning.
By 12:00 I was tired and hungry, but even more upset that I hadn't found him yet. I debated asking about him but thought that would be stupid of me; I had no links to Barry and that would just put them all at risk.
"You can go and get lunch if you like, there's a food stand over there that sells hot food," she pointed to my left, "if you want to meet back here at one, we'll carry on working, okay?"

I nodded, not thinking about work right now, but wondering how much ground I could cover in an hour.
She smiled and walked away, letting me do my own thing, and I walked quickly in the direction of the building I'd been kept under. My eyes darted around constantly, hoping I'd catch a glimpse of the man I was searching for, but the longer I looked the more downhearted I got.

I had been looking for half an hour and had begun to give up hope when I saw Barry fixing a tap near one of the enclosures.
My heart leapt and I tried to refrain from running over and hugging him. But I had to act casual, I couldn't draw attention to myself.
I started to walk towards him, thinking of what I was going to say, when he glanced up. He did a double take before smiling over at me. My legs seemed to stop working and I stood where I was, trying not to grin back. Barry lifted a finger, as though to tell me to hold on, and then put the equipment he was using down.
When he looked up again a deep frown was across his face, looking at the tap in confusion. Barry had let Dennis have the light, but by the look of it Dennis had no idea why. He glanced up in my direction, obviously looking for a reason why Barry had brought him forward, and his eyes settled on me. He blinked a few times, he didn't have his glasses so wouldn't have been able to see me clearly from that distance, before his face cleared. I started to walk again, the desperate look on his face making me eager to get to him, to hold him, tell him how much I'd missed him...
but I couldn't do that out here.
"Hey," I greeted him when I was less than a few feet away.

He looked quite overwhelmed, staring at me as though he was worried that I'd disappear if he blinked, "Hey," He breathed, barely able to talk.

"How are you?"

He let out a shaky laugh, "how am I? You just turn up out of the blue and ask how I am?" He put his hand on his head exhaled loudly, "I'm good I think..."

I wasn't sure what else to say and we both stood in silence for a moment before he leaned forward, meaning to hug me. I held up my hands, "We can't out here, can we?"

"Right, uh... okay follow me." He took me into a small storage room around the corner and shut the door behind us, grabbing me immediately and pulling me against him as tight as he dared. I hugged him too, trying not to well up at the relief that was flooding my system.
"I've waited so long to hold you, I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you too."

He kissed me deeply, then left a few quick pecks on my lips, "I didn't think you would come back."

"Why?"

"I don't know... I've been reading the papers every day since you left... it made me feel like I was still a part of your life becasue I could read updates on you, but when they stopped writing about you... I guess I didn't know what was going on anymore... I wanted to find you but Barry wouldn't let me... thinking about it I guess he was right."

"I'd never leave you... and even if I did I'd tell you, I'd never leave you wondering what had happened to me."

"Do you... still want to be with me?" He asked hesitantly.

"Of course I do," kissed him quickly on the cheek.

"Sorry, this has all been a shock, what are you doing here?"

"I'm on work experience for two weeks... I thought that it would be a good idea becasue this way there's no questions about how I know you. I can see you for the next two weeks, and then in a few months time when I don't have to live with a foster family anymore, we can figure out what to do."

He smirked, "so I get to see you for two weeks?"

"Yeah, I mean if you want to."

"Are you kidding? You're all I think about," He hugged me again, "let me buy you lunch."

"Oh, it's okay I brought my own."

"Well then sit with me, Barry's working through his break so he can stop anytime."

"Okay," I smiled and he kissed me again before leading me back out into the park. We sat down at one of the tables where Debbie had told me to eat before and Dennis cleared his throat.

"So how have you been?"

"I've been okay, I've taken an animal course at school so that I could come here and I'm really enjoying it. Everyone's been really nice to me since I got back."

"And I saw your uncle got put away?"

"Yeah, I'm living with a friend of my dad's, she's been so nice to me."

"That's good. So-"

"Hey, I see you've met our head of maintenence!" Debbie had wandered over and was smiling down at me.

"She's been telling me all about her day! She's a delightful young lady," Dennis surprised me by speaking exactly as Barry would and I had to stop my jaw from dropping.

"Good to know that she's getting on well with the staff," she smiled, "I hope you haven't been too harsh on her, I know what you're like."

He batted a hand at her, "Oh stop, I'm not that bad."

"You've got ten minutes, Casey."

"Okay."
She turned to walk away and I stared at Dennis as the usual hard expression returned and he cleared his throat.
"What was that?"

"What?"

"The voice? You impersonated Barry?"

"Well I can't exactly talk to them like this, can I? Barry works here, I don't... and if they think that Barry has lost control to anyone else then they'll report me."

"Fair enough," I hid a smirk and he raised an eyebrow.

"What? What's so funny?"

"You're voice, I can't believe you just did that."

"I spend enough time with them, It's pretty easy to pretend."

I laughed and he gazed at me from across the table, watching me with calm amusement.

When the rest of my time was up we said goodbye, and we arranged to meet at the same time tomorrow. It was difficult saying goodbye to him when we still had so much to talk about, but we didn't want to rouse suspicion so agreed it was best just to see each other for lunch. I saw Barry a few times throughout the day and he put his hand up to me every time.