Silent Souls (Wattys 2014)

Chapter Three

Him

There are so many kinds of pain.

There’s that pain you feel when you lose someone, the hollow emptiness that comes with the horrible fear of that ever-growing hole never being filled again; there’s that pain you get when you witness something terrible, that twisting, terrifying feeling…and then there’s the pain that comes with bad news – the initial shock, the wave of anguish that comes crashing in like a tsunami…

There are so many kinds of pain. But nothing compares to the kind you feel when you see someone else hurting…because of you.

*

It’s approximately twenty seven minutes past one in the afternoon when I see her smile for the first time during the day. There’s a curtain of hair covering her face as she reads her book, but I can see the smile, see the way she tries to bite it back as she flicks the page.

And I don’t know why seeing her smile makes me want to smile…crazy, right?

As soon as she looks up, brushing the hair away from her face, I just know she’s going to look over at me, and I shoot my gaze back down at my own book, unsuccessfully attempting to suppress a smile of my own.

Her

I can’t stop thinking about the stupid thing I did yesterday. I should never have said anything to him. Kyle was right.

He doesn’t like me, does he?

And the next time I look up in his direction – it’s as though the universe is answering my question – he’s gone.

Him

As soon as I get outside, it starts to rain. And, as it starts to rain, I start to run. I don’t know if I’ll have enough time, but I’m going to try and do it. For her.

Her

It’s raining again outside, just like the first time I ever saw him. He was drawing something on the rain-streaked window, laughing silently to himself as he rubbed it away—

‘Are you OK?’

I look up. It’s Kyle again.

The little spark of excitement inside me withers. I try out a nod. The facial expression he wears reads, ‘completely unconvinced,’ but he doesn’t say anything.

I watch as the rain spills down the windows like tears. The grey of the clouds that I can just about see through the glass reminds me of his eyes. It’s been two hours now. Mrs Hutton’s planning on closing early because water’s seeping under the entrance doors and soaking the carpets.

‘Just a little longer,’ I keep telling her, hoping that he’ll come back.

But, five ‘just a little longer’s later, she’s getting testy, and I’m growing more desperate by the second.

‘Honey,’ she says in that annoyingly hushed, librarian voice of hers, ‘he’s not coming.’

I wonder how she knows. Am I really that obvious?

The lights begin to flicker as thunder sounds outside, and she turns to me, her beady eyes piercing me with a questioning look.

‘Just a little longer,’ I beg. ‘Please.’