Imprint (21 page)

“Wassa wong?” Hayden asked through a mouthful of bacon. “Got something in your eye?”

Yeah. Contact lense
s to cover up his true identity.
“No, just tired.”

“You’re always tired lately,” Hayden said, sounding suspicious. “
Why aren’t you sleeping
?”

“It’s none of your business,” Drew snapped.

“Well played,” Sean drawled beside him, rolling his eyes. “You sound like even more of a prat than me.”

Drew made no indication that he had heard, but Sean wasn’t surprised. At that moment their mother came and sat down at the table, smiling innocently. “Don’t be rude, boys,” she chastised.

Hayden shrugged, sounding annoyed.
“I was just trying to be nice. Won’t make that mistake again.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t appreciate being interrogated,” Drew growled.

“I was asking about your
wellbeing
out of concern.
Sorry if that’s a crime.
”

“And s
ince when did you start caring about what goes on in my life?”

“Since you
changed,”
Hayden seethed, his voice rising in anger.

Their mother, who had long since given up on any pretences of normalcy, sighed. “Stop it.” There was a stern, authoritative tone in her voice which she rarely used. “Hayden – can
you please explain
what you meant
?”

Hayden hesitated for a moment, floundering for words. “I’m not really sure,” he finally muttered. “You’re just different, Sean. Happier maybe, more outgoing and less sarcastic all the time. Its small things, like how you wanted to go to the
beach
of all places. You hate
the beach
. I tried to ignore it at first, but everything about you just feels wrong. It’s as if…you’re not even you anymore, but I know that doesn’t make any sense.”

‘
Trust me, it m
akes more sense than you realise,’
Sean thought to himself, stunned that Hayden was this close to working it out himself. He could clearly see the concealed fear on Drew’s face, threatening to pool into his eyes. “You’re right,” Drew snapped. “That doesn’t make any sense. Now stop analysing my every move, as if I’m some test subject
in one of your psychology experiments.”

There was a stalemate for a moment, as both boys glared at each other and their mother tried in vain to diffuse the tension. “You said that night that you trusted me,” Hayden murmured. “Just tell me the truth for once, and I’ll leave you alone.”

Sean could almost see the distressed thoughts in Drew’s head, as he tried frantically to think up a suitable explanation for his strange behaviour. Sean himself decided to stay silent. He couldn’t decide if he wanted Hayden to find out the truth or not, but he was leaning towards not. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” Drew finally sighed in defeat
. “It’s because I’m in…love. With Ali.” Now
that
was unexpected. But Sean had to admit, it was rather clever too.

Hayden looked dubious, but a smile broke out on their mother’s face. She started saying something, but for some reason Sean couldn’t hear anymore. He could only see her lips move, like a TV on mute. A moment later his eyesight failed
too
and that familiar sense of falling from a great height returned as the world spun into a canvas of black.

Sean weaved between the jostling bodies and crowds of students as the bell rang to signal the end of the day. He wanted to get
out of
here and away as quickly as possible, before some
one could catch up with him. They would only find something new to torment him over. Maybe it would be his stupid haircut this time, or the food stain decorating his shirt. He really hated school.

He had made it halfway across the concrete playground, halfway to safety, before they found him. Their smirks, the silent taunts in their eyes, as if they already knew he wouldn’t fight back against them. And they did know. Because this had happened a hundred times before, and he could never put a stop to it.

“Oi, Lane,” idiot no.1 called out. “Or should I say, Lame.” His friends laughed. To Sean it sounded sinister and cruel, like an echo that has been distorted in too many ways. They approached him now, four on one like a predator sizing up its prey.

“Leave me alone,” Sean tried to turn away from them, but one of them grabbed his arm. Nails dug through the thin material of his school shirt and into his flesh, probably leaving crescent shaped bruises.

“And why should we?” Smirk. Laughter. So cold.

“Because if you don’t,
I will
make you wish you had
.” Sean looked up, startled, to see a pair of frighteningly dark eyes glaring at the four boys, churning with anger. And all he could feel was relief, because Drew was here now and he was taller than all four of them combined and somehow he would stop this for good.

“Who do you think you are?” Idiot no.3 asked, but Sean could clearly hear his voice waver with fear. Hell, Drew could be terrifying when he wanted to be.

“I think that I’m someone who is older, stronger and taller than all of you. So unless you want blue and black skin, I would suggest that you stay away from Sean. Permanently.” Drew slammed a fist into his palm for good measure. That alone seemed to be enough to cause all four to turn around and flee. And although Sean hated himself for being so weak, hated that his baby-sitter had to fight his battles for him, in that moment all he could feel was relief. And gratitude.

“Thank you,” Sean murmured quietl
y on the journey back to his home
.

Drew just shrugged. “It was nothing. Your parents are paying me to look after you, I figure they should get their money worth.”

“You still didn’t have to do that, though.”

“Correction: I shouldn’t have had to do that. You need to stand up for yourself, Sean. You can’t let them take advantage of you like that.”

Sean looked down in shame, knowing the truth in his words. As much he didn’t want to admit it, over the last few months he had become friends with Drew, even grown to respect the boy. He felt like he was letting Drew down somehow. In front of Drew he was always witty and sarcastic; he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed that Drew had seen him so weak and pathetic. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m working on it.”

The older boy seemed to sense his despondent tone and his ex
pression softened marginally. “
How about I teach you some self-defence moves sometime? You know, just in case.”

Sean forced himself to scoff, like he usually would. “
Please. You don’t know any moves. You just bluff
.”

Drew raised an eyebrow mischievously. “Wanna bet?
”

“I could take you anytime.”

“Hah. In your dreams, kid.”

Sean shot up gasping for breath, his mind reeling. Flashes of images; four boys, dark and angry eyes, a threat, a strong feeling of shame and self-hatred. Sean didn’t understand any of the jumbled images, where they came from or what they meant. They were scraps of information that he somehow knew were caged inside him, but he couldn’t find the key to unlock
them
.
They were fragments of a story line, shattered beyond
recognition;
the way ripples in water shatters a reflection.
Then a face appeared above him, sharply defined. There was something familiar about the eyes.
They were a deep blue, concerned…
Drew.

“Sean? What happened?”

Sean sat up slowly, looking around. He was on the floor of his bedroom, and it looked to be early evening.
Reality rushed back to him in a series of dizzying memories.
“Yes I’m fine
,
thanks
for asking
,” he
force
d
himself to snap
sarcastically
, although there was no conviction behind it
.

He turned just in time to see Drew roll his eyes. “You blacked out at breakfast, it was really weird. I didn’t even know Imprints
could do that. What happened?” h
e asked again.

Sean sighed, running a hand over his face. He couldn’t ge
t headaches any more, but he
still felt so confused. “I really have no idea,” he admitted. “Everything just went black, and the next thin
g I remember is waking up here.”

“You really don’t remember anything at all?”

“
I keep seeing these images, but they’re too blurry to make out. I don’t understand what it means.”

Drew looked similarly confused and…worried, almost. “Do you feel any different than before?”

“No, still as numb and iridescent as always.” The images had stopped no
w. Sean
grasp
ed
at
the last dregs of foreign emotion that ran through him, trying in vain to discern their source and meaning. The silence extended, and when he finally
turned back to Drew he saw a look of deep concentration on the other boy’s face. “So what does it mean, then?” he whispered hoarsely. “Am I fading out already?”

“I
don’t know,” Drew sighed in d
efeat. “I don’t think so
. It’s not supposed to happen like this. Hell, I’ve never heard of anything like it. You really are an exception to the general rules of death.”

Sean chuckled humourlessly. “And you’re one to the rules of life. So what, does that mean you’re my other half or something?”

“If you could put it in a way that doesn’t imply that we’re romantically involved, then maybe.”

“Don’t worry, the thought sickens me too.
”
Sean sighed. “What should we do about this new development, then? I doubt it means anything good for either of us.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Drew shrugged. “Except wait and see if it happens again.
In the meantime, I need to keep Hayden out of this. You realise it’s for the best, right?”

And as much as Sean tried to convince himself otherwise, he agreed with Drew, nodding his consent. There was nothing Hayden, or anyone else, could do to help him now. His brother finding out the truth would only cause unnecessary complications.
They grew quiet after that, Drew retreating back into his thoughts and Sean still trying to make sense of everything that he had felt and seen. As the sky outside bloomed steadily into navy blue, he felt something niggling in the back of his mind
that he couldn’t place
, something about concrete playgrounds and an all-encompassing sense of security.

Days turned into a week, and a week turned into two.
She was by no mea
ns fixed, but Ali seemed to be improving little by little. She’d
gotten more used to eating around Drew and he no longer had to threaten her into it anymore.
Sean kept to his routine of spe
nding half the night with her
, and the other half with Drew. Either way he could not sleep himself, and watching others do it was t
he next best thing. He
missed being able to sleep; the nights were long and lonely, filled with flickering dark shadows and strange noises. He missed being able to eat as well, being able to take a shower and feel the hot water on his back. Once, he had just stood in the shower and let the water stream straight through him, feeling oddly empty. He felt less alive each day, less human. It made him wonder how long it would take him to fade out of existence completely
, and somehow he knew that he didn’t have very long left. Whatever he had become, it would be gone soon.

He’d lost track of the date by now. Time was another thing that had become insignificant. All he knew was that it was an unusually dark night and he was walking back to his own house when he saw Brian and Penny ag
ain, the I
mprints who Drew was
friends with.
It had been a while since he’d last seen them.

“Sean,” The older man
stopped him first and
n
odded his head in greeting, the little girl offering
a shy smile. “How are you finding it?”

The casualness of the situation momentarily surprised Sean, as he still barely knew the other two and hadn’t expected them to suddenly act so…friendly, asking how he was and everything. As if they were old friends and had known each other for years.
“
Finding what?” h
e remembered to ask, feeling rather stupid.

“The afterlife, of course.”

Sean shrugged, cracking a joke to try and lighten the atmosphere
. “
Definitely no
t how they described it in the B
ible.”

“It’s just a
fo
rm of purgatory really,” Brian gave a rather fake laugh.
“You get
used to it after awhile
.”