All The Lonely People - David Owen Page 0,87

she didn’t care. She wouldn’t wipe the tears away. ‘You’re the only person I’ve ever felt I could be myself with, without hiding anything. Without being ashamed. You made me happy to be me. We don’t need to become anybody else – if we’re together we can be us.’

There was hardly a face left to see, but she somehow sensed that Safa was smiling. ‘Look,’ she said.

Kat lifted her hands. They were solid again. Complete. She turned them over, saw the lines and blemishes and whorls of fingerprints she thought she had lost. She rubbed her fingers together, astounded by her skin’s friction. Rubbed them up her arms, along her legs, pressed her fingertips to her face and laughed.

‘I’m back,’ she said. She was so glad. To stand here as herself, happy inside her reimbursed skin, was liberating beyond belief. She had fought to save herself, fought to like herself, and been rewarded.

Still that air of a smile. ‘You sexy cow.’

‘Now you.’

A tear traced the curve of her jaw, her skin fizzing in its path, and Safa lifted the idea of a hand to dry it. ‘I want to.’

Kat’s heart leapt. ‘I want you to.’

‘You mean it? You would have me?’

Kat tried to find her eyes. ‘If you want to stay with me, then stay.’

‘I don’t know if I can hold on.’ Safa’s body momentarily flickered out of existence, before sputtering back with frightened eyes as clear as day. She reached for Kat’s hands, desperate to cling onto the world, but could find no grip. ‘I’m scared, Kat. I can feel myself coming apart. I’m going and I can’t stop it.’

‘No!’ Everybody else on the street could see her now, and the passing shoppers regarded her curiously or rushed their children past. She didn’t care. ‘You’re too stubborn to let it happen if it’s not what you want. You told me to fight for myself. Now you have to do it too. Fight.’

When they had first learned to step inside the lives of other people, it had been fuelled by thoughts of everything they felt they had got wrong in their lives. All the reasons they should be excused to leave themselves behind. Now Kat held tight to all the reasons she had discovered to stay.

‘Remember singing “Mr Pretzel”?’ she said.

Safa’s form sputtered, reformed. ‘And messing with Miss Jalloh’s precious bell.’

‘You put your thumb inside my mouth when I had brain freeze.’

‘You dance like you’re getting attacked by bees.’

A tear rolled down Kat’s cheek as she smiled. ‘Only with you.’ A steadying breath, before she lifted her hands in a final bid to reach for Safa’s fingers . . .

And felt them graze her palm.

They both cried out in delight. Kat fumbled for a better hold, clutching Safa’s hands inside her own. They grew firmer, friction seeming to throw sparks between their skin.

Kat held her eyes. ‘Now come back to me.’

She pulled gently, as if guiding her back through a rent in the universe, and Safa coalesced in front of her. Colour rushed back into her skin, filled her lines and rounded her features, until she was complete again, emancipated from the void.

‘It’s good to see you,’ said Kat.

They squeezed each other’s hands – strong, unequivocal – as tightly as they could. In that embrace was a promise: that they would be there for each other, hold each other up, and never let the other forget they were wanted.

‘You’re stuck with me now, my dude,’ said Safa.

Kat grinned. ‘We’re stuck with ourselves.’

Together, they were ready for it.

37

Season Three, Episode One

It had felt peculiar to leave each other after hours of sitting together on a bench in the middle of town, pressed tightly shoulder-to-shoulder and talking about . . . nothing in particular, without the shadow of the fade hanging over them, knowing they had as much time as they could ever want.

Neither of them wanted to dwell on what they had almost lost. Instead, they read the news that Tinker had been rescued by a rather confused group of strangers, and three assailants had been arrested (‘You are actually a frickin’ hero,’ said Safa proudly). Plans were hatched for an all-night Doctor Backwash marathon, before they pooled ideas for a new video game to replace the one Kat had deleted.

The bus journey home passed in contented silence, each knowing there was no rush to speak. They squeezed hands again before they parted, as if to confirm it had all been true.

Now Kat stood alone on her doorstep, frightened to go