Walking round my bed = 2 spoons

I blink the black spots out of my eyes and remember to breathe as I walk with one hand on my bedframe, just in case. My phone’s next to Manta’s fish tank and he swims down to the bottom to see who it is.

It’s Cecelia. Her face beams out at me from the screen mid-laugh.

I pick the phone up. ‘Hello, you.’

‘Oh my God, are you running, too? You sound like you’ve been running. I’m running round the park at the moment with all these people, Al. It’s crazy – there are, like, a hundred people here, all running, and I just saw them and thought, hey, why not join them? I’m wearing sandals and am so sweaty in my jeans.’

She laughs and pants, and I laugh and pant, and I sit down on the bed and remind myself again to breathe.

Standing up = 1 spoon

‘I’ve been … gaming. And now I’m visiting Manta.’

‘You and that fish,’ she says, and I can hear the thump of her legs on the ground, and the phone jumping at her face, and her lungs breathing the outside air, and it’s wonderful.

Manta blows a bubble and I open the tub of food next to his tank and sprinkle a few flakes in. He picks off the bits at the surface before twirling to catch the ones falling like snow.

Feeding Manta = 1 spoon

‘How old is that fish now, anyway? Do fish even live that long?’

‘Yes!’ I say. ‘He’s only six – they can live much longer than that.’

‘Jeez,’ she says, starting to gasp a bit now. ‘You got him when you stopped school, didn’t you? God, I can’t believe that’s been six years already. We’re getting so old.’

I swallow and sit a bit further back on the bed. ‘Tell me what you see.’

Cecelia laughs. ‘Sweaty people. And running shoes, which I should definitely be wearing.’

I close my eyes as she lists the other things she can see and try to imagine me running next to her, although it’s hard, because I never did do much running back when I could. I was too busy swimming instead – every day after school. Being in the water felt like coming home – as though I was born with gills and every moment of my life on land was me holding my breath. I used to pretend that I was freediving through mangroves and watching fish dart between tree roots. And I’d dream about one day disappearing somewhere far away, where the water is a window that you can push your hands right through.

‘Come join me, Al,’ Cecelia says, like she’s reading my mind through the phone.