Imprint (26 page)

“Does it bother you that soon you won’t exist?”

“
No,
I can’t bring myself to care anymore. I came to terms with it a while ago.”

Drew just smiled sadly. “You
see, you may have given up
but
I haven’t won yet.
T
his game’s far from over.”

It wasn’t the chilling words that made Sean involuntarily shiver and send panic racing through his head, it was the haunted look on the other boy’s face as he said it.

Chapter 14
:
You crack me up like an egg 

“It feels wrong.”

“What does?”

“This process of fading out of existence.”

“I thought you said you’d already accepted it.”

“I have. But there’s still something that feels wrong, as if it’s not supposed to happen this way.”

“Well, it’s not. You’re not dead. You weren’t supposed to go like this.”

“I wonder how I would have died then, if you had never interfered.”

“A disease, maybe. Or murder. There’s so many different ways to go, but yours is pretty unique.”

“Yeah, I suppose it is. No one’s going to care when it happens though, they won’t
even
know I’m gone.”

“That’s a pretty harrowing thing to say.”

“Well, my body will still be here, and no one will notice the difference. It makes me wonder if I ever existed in the first place.”

“You exist right
now;
otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’ll know when you’re gone.”

“But you’ll be the only person in the whole world who knows.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“No, but it’s the best I’m going to get. Give me a funeral or something, will you?”

“I won’t have anything to bury.”

“You can bury my mouldy socks in my place, to represent me.”

“Are you being serious?”

“No, but I can’t think of anything else.
It’s a reason to laugh while I still can, right?
”

“Well, if it’s
what you want,
I’ll bury your socks.
I’ll do
my best to mourn for you too – t
he whole death package.”

Two days passed without incide
nt. Sean
kept to himself mostly,
and Hayden seemed to be doing the same. Sean passed
up his nightly visits to Ali’s house and
instead stayed by Drew the whole night
. The ex-I
mprint himself didn’t sleep much anymore. He pretended to, and he was very good at pretending to sleep, but Sean was not fooled. He had spent so many hours now watching people sleep that he could tell if it was fake or not. He never said anything about it though, because he knew Drew would only deny it.

In the past two days Ali had also been sick. That was only according to Drew though, an explanation for why she wasn’t at school. Sean found it slightly suspicious,
and went to check on her once. She did look sick
and was bedridden
, so he didn’t question it
, forcing away the concern he felt.
At the moment nothing made sense, and he knew pushing the matter would not gain him any answers.
If you can’t beat them, join them
, they used to say. H
e remembered that saying
now with an ironic grin. I
t suited his current situation
so well
. When had he stopped hating Drew? He could never come up with a specific time or date, but somewhere along this skewered timeline he had joined the side of his own destroyer. How. Damn. Ironic.

Wednesday
snuck up on him
quietly and without any forewarning, but somehow there was a difference in the air. Like a quiet buzzing sound. Like
apprehension. The source seemed to be Drew, whose depression had steadily gotten worse over the course of the
week until, by then
, he was pretty much mute. He would sit on the grimy window sill, or out on the porch, and would stare off into the sky for hours at a time with a blank expression. Sometimes he would take long walks in the evening to the park, or a random street, and Sean would follow behind afraid to break the silence.

It was on o
ne such trip that
they came across Brian and Penny again. Sean had missed talking to the old man, ev
en though they’d only had one proper conversation so far
. Still, being able to talk to someone other than Drew was
a relief, especially when he
was in such an antisocial mood.

“Drew!” Penny was the first to gush, all innocent smiles and faint blushes. “Me and Papa have been looking for you
everywhere
,” she emphasized ‘everywhere’ with large and elaborate hand gestures.

There was an awkward moment, and then recognition leaked through into Drew’s glazed eyes and he cracked a fake smile. “Sorry ‘bout that Penny, guess I’ve been a bit busy lately. It’s good to see you again though.” He ruffled her hair and the little girl didn’t seem to notice any difference and giggled, leaping away from him.

“Bet you can’t catch me,” she stuck her tongue out cheekily and ran behind Brian’s legs.

“She seems as happy as ever,” Sean commented with a small smile of his ow
n, watching her. “It’s as if none of this has even affected her.
”

Brian
nodded in agreement. “She’s adapted quickly, it a relief.”
He
turned
to Drew. “Where have
you been hiding out all this time anyway? We’ve had a hard time trying to find you.”

“Here and there,” Drew replied elusively.

“Mind elaborating a bit on that?”

“Not really. I’ve just been busy recently, Brian.”

Something unsaid seemed to pass between t
he two, a silent argument that confused Sean even more. But then, as if remembering his presence, Brian suddenly plastered on an overly cheerful smile and said to Sean: “Ah, he’s just being grouchy today. How are you?”

“Confused, thanks.” He eyed
them warily.
Why did everyone except him seem to have a big secret nowadays?

“That’s just your permanent state of being Sean,” Drew shot with a sneer.

“Yeah, well look at the
‘permanent state’ of your face-
”

“That’s
your
face, dimwit.”

“Which you ruin, jerk.”

“You’re just jealous that it looks better on me
.”

“Like hell you vain, egocentric bastard.”

Truthfully, Sean had actually missed these stupid
mini
arguments. They had become routine and were a lot less frightening than Drew’s newly found depressive s
t
ate.  They symbolised normalcy, or what had become of it over the last few months.

“You w
eren’t kidding,” Brian
piped up, heaving chuckles. “You two really do fight over completely ridiculous things. You should’ve heard some of things he was saying about you, Drew,” he added, winking.

“I’d rather not, I
doubt the
y’re pretty,” said boy muttered, and he was suddenly back to serious again.
“Enough of this, since you’re here I need to talk to you about something alone Brian.” He gave Sean a meaningful
glance that could be translated easily as ‘piss off’.

“I’m not
leaving,” Sean said stubbornly, trying to match the glare he was receiving.

Drew
was about to argue back, but
Brian cut in
first
. “Don’t worry about it, Drew, I know what you want to say. Sean should stay as close to you as possible now anyway, he doesn’t have long left.”
There was something strange about the
way he said it, something familiar and sad.

Drew just looked down meekly, seeming enthralled by his shoelaces.
“Yeah, I know.”

Why did he seem so upset by this fact, Sean pondered.
He
was the one who was going to fade out, not Drew. “I
know I won’t be around much longer
, but stop talk
ing about me as if I’m already gone
,” Sean said.

Brian ignored him, his attention focused solely on the burgundy eyed boy. “When?” he asked quietly.

“When what?” Sean yelled, angry that no one would answer him.

Drew paused, looked between the two of them, and there was a grim smile on his face. “You’ll know when,” he said.

The next day Sean decided to stage an intervention.
Not because he cared about Drew or anything stupid like that, but because if the prat decided to commit suicide in his body then he was also screwed. More importantly there were still too many unanswered questions. That feeling of apprehension was still there, suffocating him. He knew Drew was keeping secrets. And somehow he knew that those secrets were the answers to his questions. So when Drew went out for another of his lonely walks that Thursday, Sean decided to stay behind and work on a plan of action.

By the time Drew returned, the sky outside was dark and ominous. Any thoughts of interrogation were quickly wiped from Sean’s mind as the door opened with a bark. Wait,
bark?
Doors generally creaked, they didn’t bark.
His confusion was quickly replaced by surprise when Drew appeared inside the room holding a small black dog. It increased further when he noticed that Drew was
smiling.

“Okay. P
lease explain to me why you are holding
a
d
og
.”

Drew collapsed onto the bed, still cradling the dog to
his
chest like a small child as it yipped happily. “
Because,
Sean
, I found her on her own in the park and I couldn’t just leave her. She might have died.”

“And you thought it necessary to bring it back here?”

Drew frowned. “Don’t call her an ‘it’. That’s demeaning. And besides, I love dogs. They’re loyal, they don’t argue back, and they’re not demanding.”

Sean was sorely tempted to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.
“Who knew that all it took would be a ball of flu
ff for you to turn into a girl,” he snickered.

Drew looked affronted.
“There’s nothing unmanly about
being a gene
rous, kind-hearted animal lover,” he sniffed indignantly.
“
Girls go f
or that sort of thing, you know.
”
He finally seemed to realise that the dog was struggling in his arms though and put the poor animal
down
.
It began to sniff the room and h
e watched it with a small smile tugging
at the corners of his lips.
Sean couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He couldn’t believe how unpredictable Drew could be. A week long depression broken by a
stray animal
of all things.

“Like any girl would come within 10 feet of you.”

Drew smirked. “Unless you’ve forgotten, Ali did. And she seemed to enjoy herself.”

Sean couldn’t help the flash of anger he felt at the mention of her, and him, together. “She only did it thinking it was me,” he muttered.

“God knows why. You made it pretty clear that you were, what, asexual or something.”

“I am
not
asexual, you prat.”

“
Really? So you swing the other way, huh?”

Sean felt a sudden urge to repeatedly slam his head against a wal
l. “And no, I’m not gay either-
”

“Are you sure? Could have fooled me.”

“
Shut up!
I like girls, you utter moron.”

“Anyone in particular?” That sly smirk was still playing on Drew’s lips, eyes glinting.

“Yes. I like Al-
” Sean stopped suddenly, eyes wide, realising what he had been about to say.
Ali.
No, he wouldn’t go there. He wouldn’t touch it with a 20 foot pole. She was his best friend, his only real friend. He wouldn’t complicate things with his stupid, bodily desires. “Alex,” he finished instead. “Yeah, I like Alex.”

“The orange slut? Really?”

Sean sighed, deciding he should probably quit while he was behind and change the subject. “You know you’ll have to get rid of the dog, right? Mum will never let you keep it.” They both glanced at the black dog which they had forgotten about, who appeared to be asleep in the corner.