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  “I do care-” Sean tried to protest, but was quickly cut off.

  “Then you’re doing a pretty good job of hiding it. Hell, she’s your friend and I seem to care more than you do.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Sean looked away. “You said yourself, it’s just a phase.”

  “A phase of not eating? Are you really that stupid or do I have to tell you the other name for it?” Drew paused for a moment, as if waiting for an answer, before continuing anyway. “Anorexia, Sean. An eating disorder.”

  “She skipped a few meals, that doesn’t make her anorexic.”

  Drew laughed hollowly. “I’ve seen it before,” he said. “It starts off with a few meals and gradually becomes all meals. Didn’t you notice how much weight she’s lost? We’ve only been gone about a month; you can’t lose that much on any normal diet.”

  “You’re over thinking things,” Sean denied, but it sounded weak. “What do you know about that sort of stuff, anyway? All girls get self-conscious and diet at some point, that’s what they do.”

  There was a long pause and Drew looked away, his gaze suddenly very dull and reminiscent as he stared off towards the dusty racks of withered CD cases and the frayed posters decorating the wall. “I used to have a cousin with an eating disorder once,” he admitted quietly. “I was quite close to her, and she was always so cheerful. But then when she was about twenty she stopped eating and lost so much weight in such a short period of time that she almost died. Just trust me, this is how it always starts.”

  Sean didn’t know what to say after that. Eventually he managed to stutter out: “What happened to her?” and it sounded so pathetic to his own ears that he had to fight back a cringe.

  “She went to a special clinic, and she recovered eventually. It took a while though, and it was hard on her and her family. She’s never been quite the same since, though. I could see the shadows in her eyes, the last time I saw her. She wasn’t as bright and sunny as she used to be. I’m not sure if she ever will be.”

  “I’m sorry, about your cousin I mean. I didn’t know.” Why was he sorry for someone he hated?

  Drew just sighed sadly. “Saying stuff like that doesn’t fix anything. Don’t say sorry, do something to prevent it happening to Ali.”

  “I will.”

  “Good. Then go use some initiative and your ability to walk through walls to spy on her.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  “I’m sure it’ll be more fun than watching me all night, which honestly creeps me out a bit. And maybe you’ll learn something while you’re over there to help with the situation.”

  Sean considered for a moment, but then let out a defeated sigh. “Fine, I’ll do it.” Because the truth was, if he had to watch someone sleep he’d rather it be Ali than Drew.

  When Sean floated through the front door of Ali’s house and into the dining room to see her parents having dinner and her vacated seat, he was honestly surprised. Although plausible he’d never truly believed Drew’s theory, but now he was starting to. After pausing a second longer, he left to scale the stairs to the second floor and search out her room. He had only been in there once or twice before, because normally she would come to his house instead.

  He heard the sound of running water in the bathroom, and realised that it must be her. He missed showers. He missed her as well, now that he thought about it. He missed a lot of things. ‘You’re a ghost, you can walk through walls’, his mind reminded him. ‘You could always take a peek. Just one, it wouldn’t hurt’. He felt ashamed for even thinking those thoughts, what was wrong with him? He wasn’t a pervert. He wasn’t. He probably didn’t even have hormones anymore, they were a strictly physical thing, so what was it? Curiosity? He shook his head rather forcefully and decided to wait in her bedroom instead. She was only his friend, his female friend, but he had morals. He wouldn’t demean and violate her privacy like that, even if she had no idea.

  Her bedroom hadn’t changed much. It was still as neat and orderly as ever, the bookshelves choked with books. His eyes softened as they trailed over a collection of dusty photographs on the bedside table; one of them was of him and Ali together, both grinning cheekily into the camera. He could remember well the day it was taken. She had coerced him into going fishing with her, which had ended in a ‘who can catch the most tadpoles’ competition and, ultimately, an all out water fight. It was a fond memory. He’d found her annoying at one time, but not anymore. He cared, just didn’t show it as openly as she did.

  The door creaked open ten minutes later and Ali, clad in pyjamas, walked in with an exhausted sigh, causing Sean to instinctively jump out of the way. She opened the window and then collapsed onto her bed, burying her head in the pillow. Sean decided that he liked her new scarlet curls, they strangely suited her. He waited patiently until she finally dragged herself back up again and over to her dressing table. She sat in front of the large mirror for a long time, apparently just staring vacantly at her reflection, dull eyes ringed with shadows. Then suddenly she stood up again and turned sideways to look at herself, hands planted on her hips, a dissatisfied frown on her face. ‘Not good enough’ it seemed to say. It was probably what she was thinking as well. Sean couldn’t understand what she saw that made her frown like that though, and wished he could tell her the opposite. He wished he could make her smile again.

  She turned away from the mirror after that and, eyes darting to the picture on the table, lay down on the floor. At first Sean was confused; wouldn’t a bed be more comfortable? But then when she started doing sit ups, he understood. And with this understanding came a pang of sadness. She looked so tired, so lifeless, and yet she was still exercising. The girl he watched now and the one who had bounded up to introduce herself to him on his first day suddenly seemed very different. He tried to think back, to remember Ali like she was before. She had never cared about silly things like appearance, she had cared about books and knowledge. She was cheerful and outgoing and kind and infinitely irritating and…she had come to visit him in the hospital everyday when he was unconscious. But now, he couldn’t help but wonder if underneath all of that she had been like this all along. Maybe he had just been too self-absorbed to see it.

  He watched her for a while, but when her breaths started to come in painful heaves he looked away, guilty. Her body rose and fell, like the waves he’d been watching only a few days before, but unlike them she wasn’t natural or calm. She reminded him more of a storm: unpredictable, churning, confusing, dark. He wasn’t sure where that last adjective fitted in, but there was something about this whole situation that was undeniably dark. Maybe the darkness was contagious.

  He wanted to do something to help her, show her that this wasn’t necessary, but how could he when she couldn’t see or hear him? Tearing his gaze away he glided back over to the dressing table, noticing that there was foundation powder spilt all over it. Making sure that she was preoccupied, he shakily reached out and concentrated on one point of his body. It took a lot of effort, but he was grateful to see a line being cut through the powder as he traced his finger through it. It reminded him of something he’d seen on TV once: Indians, drawing pictures of Ghandi into the sand with their fingers.

  By the time his work was complete, Ali had given up and simply lay on the floor, catching her breath. Sean glanced back one more time, before leaving through the window. He did not stay to see the expression of awe and surprise on her face when she finally noticed the two barely legible words which had been carved into the layer of foundation coating her dressing table:

  Please eat.

  Chapter 10: Stay with me

  Sean was not a huge fan of parties, unlike pretty much every other teenager in existence apparently. It wasn’t that he disapproved of drinking. That sounded far too righteous. He just found them boring – they were all the same really. Drink. Get pissed. Act like an idiot. Exchange saliva with a complete stranger. Rinse and repeat. And while he didn’t mi
nd others doing it, he personally hated drinking; it reminded him far too much of the sad state alcohol had left his mother in. It was unsurprising really that he didn’t get invited to many parties anyway.

  What was surprising was that Drew had taken it upon himself to make him likeable. The big, fat virtual party invitation polluting his facebook account was evidence of that. And while initially Sean hadn’t thought anything of ‘his’ sudden popularity, he suddenly wished that Drew would stop being so damn friendly to everyone. Because he rather liked moping in his dingy bedroom, and having to follow Drew to a party sounded like the worst possible way to spend one of his last few Saturday nights of spiritual existence.

  “I can’t believe you’re so ungrateful,” Drew remarked, when Sean tried to explain this to him. “Here I am, doing you a favour by making you popular, and you have the gall to complain about it.”

  “Correction,” Sean snarled. “You’re making you popular. You’re the one who’s keeping the body, unless I’m suddenly enlightened with the knowledge of how to get it back.”

  Drew shrugged. “Yeah well, everyone still thinks it’s you who’s suddenly grown a personality. Anyway, be excited. You get to watch me have fun all night.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re actually planning on going.”

  “Of course I am. Normal people like parties, you know.”

  “You can’t go! I’ll-”

  “What? Swear at me? Sounds terrifying.”

  “I could make my fist solid and punch you in the face.”

  “And risk fading out even quicker?”

  “Okay, well-”

  “Face it, I’m going and you can’t stop me. Gosh you sound like my mother.” Drew rolled his eyes in amusement. “Ali’s going too, you know. Don’t you want me to look after her for you?”

  “What?” Sean’s eyes widened slightly. Since when did Ali also get popular? ‘Well, since she started wearing skirts short enough to be belts’ his mind supplied rather rebelliously. Seeing the disbelief on his face, Drew scrolled down the invite list. Sure enough Ali was down as ‘attending.’

  “She’s not as socially stunted as you, Sean,” Drew smirked. “She actually got a life, around the same time I did, literally. See what I did there? Witty, I know.”

  Sean sighed in exasperation. “I told you to stop with the puns. And fine, you win. But you’d better make sure nothing happens to her, or I will...”

  “It’s kinda difficult to make threats in your position, isn’t it?”

  “Shut up.”

  Drew laughed. “Okay, fine. What are you, her father or something? I’ll look out for her. Scouts honour, except I was never a scout and I don’t really know what the funny hand signal is, so I doubt that counts for much.”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of your own voice?”

  “No. Oh, how about-”

  “Don’t you dare suggest a pinkie swear.”

  Drew paused in genuine surprise. A moment later: “am I really that predictable?”

  “I was being sarcastic, you moron.”

  “Oh.”

  Sean groaned in exasperation and exhaustion. He couldn’t feel physical tiredness anymore, but he could sure as hell feel it emotionally. Tomorrow was going to be a long, long night.

  The next day Sean was in a particularly bad mood. It only increased when he saw Ali’s genuine excitement for this stupid social gathering – when had she changed so much and why hadn’t he noticed it before? Three years ago, she would have joined him in scorning it rather than actually taking part. It had already been a week since he had visited her, and she seemed to be unaffected. He was starting to think, with a certain amount of disappointment, that she hadn’t noticed the words he’d tried to write on her dresser.

  By the time he and Drew actually arrived at the house where the party was being held, fashionably late as Drew had put it, Sean felt positively foul. He wished desperately that he could expel his bad mood on someone else, but since no one could hear him, he settled for muttering angrily under his breath and trying to block out the needlessly loud music. These idiots would blow their own eardrums out before they reached thirty. What annoyed him further was that both Drew and Ali seemed to be enjoying themselves. Within the first half an hour of arriving he had sought her out and done the whole ‘play nice and act like I care’ thing. She’d fallen for it of course. She always seemed to fall for Drew’s excuses and fake charming smiles nowadays. She was far too trusting, always had been, especially when it came to him.

  Sean watched from a safe distance, away from the tangled crowd of bodies, as they danced together. Well, since it was a fast song, they were technically just dancing next to each other. They were both laughing and trying to have a conversation over the deafening music. He couldn’t help but notice what Ali was wearing – a delicate, white lace dress which flared out just above her knees and clung to her slender figure. Her eyes were rimmed black, dark and exotic. She looked even smaller than he remembered, he noticed anxiously, and Drew’s words involuntarily replayed themselves in his head. He tried to convince himself it was just the fluorescent lights. Despite everything though, he thought that she looked beautiful. Not sexy, because that just wasn’t Ali, and it would only imply a superficial beauty. Hers was pure, innocent, the same beauty she had always had but he had never noticed before now.

  Suddenly, the song slowed down. Throughout the room people paired off into couples and danced in each other’s arms. A few without dates meandered off to the sides. Sean watched with interest as Drew whispered something in Ali’s ear. He saw her smile and nod, before she reached up around Drew’s neck and they swayed together to the rhythm. Sean had never seen the two of them so…intimate. He felt a flutter of something – frustration? Anger? – rise up inside him, but quickly tried to quell the out of place emotions. He really had to stop being so over-protective of Ali. Although Drew was an idiot, one dance with him would not mentally traumatise her. It was just a stupid dance. It didn’t mean anything.

  Sure enough, they broke apart after the song finished. Sean was relieved. He didn’t want Ali to get close to Drew. That was the reason, he told himself. It was natural after all to feel concern for a close friend, and while Drew hadn’t shown any intention to cause her harm he was still a potential threat. They talked for a few minutes longer, and then Ali flitted off to the drinks table on the side while Drew started up a conversation with a pretty redhead Sean had never seen before. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes to himself. Why Drew seemed to think he was a ‘player’ he would never understand.

  An hour crawled by, at the pace of a giant land turtle meandering across the prairies in the midday sun. At least that’s what it felt like to Sean. By now he was so bored he had been reduced to thinking up colourful metaphors to describe the extent of his boredom. He had tried a few of them on Drew, but the other boy just ignored him and continued entertaining the group of giggling girls who hung onto his every word like limpets. What was wrong with them?

  Fed up, he glanced around the room looking for Ali. He hadn’t seen her for a while. His gaze landed on a couple engrossed in their mission of eating each other’s faces off in the corner of the room. He grimaced in disgust, and was about to move on, when suddenly he recognised the blonde head. Ali. What on earth? It had only been an hour – how had she gone from getting a drink to sucking face with a stranger in that amount of time? He got closer, trying to figure out who the boy was. Sean vaguely recognised him as one of the more popular boys at school; the type who played sports and went through girlfriends like bottles of beer. ‘Great choice there, Al’ he couldn’t help but think sarcastically. He really, really wished he could punch that guy’s face in.

  He stood there for a few more minutes, seething inwardly. “You’re such an idiot, Al,” he muttered, knowing she couldn’t hear but wanting to get his frustration out anyway. Didn’t she realise what a jerk this guy was? That by tomorrow she would just become one of his many conquests? Unless it was all a
game to her, too. When they eventually broke apart for air, he noticed that her cheeks were suffused in pink. She swayed on her feet, catching the boy’s arm to steady herself. Of course, she was drunk. Things made a lot more sense now. In her right mind, Ali would never have made such a bad choice.

  He felt his protective side flare up again when The Jerk led her off the dance floor and towards the stairs. He could guess what he was thinking of; he was also a teenage boy after all. And he’d heard far too many stories about jerks like him taking advantage of drugged girls at parties. A sense of dread filled his stomach as the couple disappeared up the stairs and out of sight. He panicked, knowing he himself couldn’t do anything, and out of sheer desperation quickly made his way back over to Drew.

  “Drew, Ali’s in trouble,” he blurted out. “She’s drunk and she was with some idiot and now he’s taken her upstairs, you have to do something.”

  Sean had to admit, for all of his flaws Drew was a remarkably good actor. He showed no hint of surprise on his face and carried on acting completely natural. However he quickly excused himself from the redhead he was back to talking to with a flirtatious smile, pushing quickly through the crowd towards the staircase. “How long ago?” he asked. The music was so loud that Sean guessed he wasn’t worried about anyone hearing him.

  “Maybe a few minutes ago.”

  Drew nodded and bounded up the stairs, reaching the landing. It was dark, music and chatter floating up and echoing eerily in the hollow staircase. The landing led off to six different rooms. Without hesitation, Drew chose the only door that was closed and barged in. The sight that met their eyes sickened Sean.

  Most of the room was taken up by a large, double bed. On the bed two bodies thrashed, the larger one pinning the smaller one down. Sean could see the hand over Ali’s mouth, silencing her screams. Her eyes, terrified and still hazy from alcohol, streamed tears as she struggled in vain. The boy on top of her had his mouth pressed roughly to hers, tugging at her dress and ripping the lacy fabric at the shoulders. In that moment, Sean saw red. It seeped into his vision like blood, an angry haze that overpowered everything else. He had only ever felt rage this strong once before; after Drew had explained everything that had happened to him.