All The Lonely People - David Owen Page 0,31

admit the truth. He stepped closer to the family portrait and pressed a finger to Aaron.

‘Who’s this?’

At first, neither mother or son looked at the photograph. It wasn’t deliberate denial; that might have been understandable. No, they seemed incapable of seeing him. Any memory of the other boy who used to live here was held just out of reach. They were surrounded by his image, and yet they never saw.

‘Leave it,’ said Robbie. The Lonely People had bunched together again, eyes on the carpet as if ashamed.

Wesley couldn’t. ‘You had another son. You had a brother. Now he’s gone.’ He looked between them pleadingly. ‘You can’t have forgotten him.’

Joseph spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Get out of our house.’

‘He’s right there!’ shouted Wesley, ripping the portrait from the wall and holding it out to them. ‘Can’t you see him?’

‘I see him!’ Mrs Musley cried, seeming to collapse. ‘Aaron is gone!’

‘Where? Where has he gone?’

She shook her head, dislodging tears that tracked down her cheeks. ‘I don’t know. He’s just gone. Most of the time I don’t even remember . . . it’s like he was never here at all. And then the absence hits me like a wave . . . oh god!’ She stumbled and slumped onto the nearest sofa, covering her face as sobs wracked her body.

Joseph grabbed hold of Wesley’s shoulder and wrestled him towards the door. ‘Get out of here!’

Still clutching the photograph, he was bundled along the hallway, the others grabbing Evie and following behind.

‘Please, I just need to know what happened,’ said Wesley. ‘It’s happening to somebody else and I need to stop it.’

‘You’re no better than the people who were sniffing around when we first realised he was gone!’ shouted Joseph, shoving him through the front door.

‘Who?’ said Wesley as the rest of the group joined him outside, hurrying quickly back onto the road. ‘Who was looking for your brother?’

The boy’s expression softened. ‘His friend Lukundo. He knew him from church.’

They hurried away and didn’t stop until they were well clear of the house. Jae began to cry, and Aoife let him push his face into her shoulder. Robbie shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked his toes hard into the ground, over and over.

The family portrait felt heavy in Wesley’s hands. He stared at it for a long moment, a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘Do you want that to happen for all of you?’ he said.

Not one of them would meet his gaze. They didn’t speak again until they had traipsed back to the school.

‘I want to know what happened to Aaron,’ said Aoife. ‘What really happened.’

‘Me too,’ said Jae.

Robbie watched them for a moment, and then nodded.

Wesley almost smiled, he was so relieved that he wouldn’t have to do it alone. ‘We’ll find this friend his brother mentioned. He might know something.’

They split up to head home, but Wesley wasn’t ready to go back to the flat. He had hardly learned anything new about the fade, and nothing that would help him pull Kat from its grasp.

He still remembered her when he shouldn’t. There had to be a chance that he could see her, speak to her, when others couldn’t. At the least, he still needed to return her MacBook. If he couldn’t do it at school, he would just have to try her at home.

12

Confessions to the Void

Kat was supposed to be working on her video game, but concentration was in short supply. A Backwash episode – the one where Esme tries to recruit a crooked nuclear physicist through an elite dating website – was playing in the background. No matter how many times she watched the show, she never stopped swooning for Esme. She almost always wore this high-necked, flowing white dress, almost like a Victorian nightie. It would have made her look like she was floating, except she paired it with knee-high biker boots and spiked gauntlets. Her perm would have made the ‘90s blush.

In short, she was perfect. Kat wanted to be her and be with her. Whenever her boyfriend Roland came on screen she practically growled at him.

The other distraction was her stubbornly silent phone. She checked the chat log with Suzy again.

Hey, can we catch up soon? Call me. x - Seen 23.08

Nearly twenty-four hours ago and no reply.

Before any of this, she had considered inviting her sister to the women’s march on Sunday. She felt strongly about its purpose, to stand up to the myriad injustices faced by women every day. It was the