‘You did beautiful things, Rowan. None of that is a failure. You know, Wesley was watching you. My mum said. He marked you out as someone special. Someone who could achieve great things.’

I laugh.

‘Yeah – Mr Cooper thought

everyone was special.

He put up every crappy painting like it

deserved a prize.’

‘Maybe. But, you know, he told my mum that you were different. That you could really be something.’

I swallow.

‘Yeah, well, no offence to the dead,

but he didn’t know what he was on about.’

I drop my voice to a whisper so it doesn’t scare him offline again. Not like last time.

‘I see it, too, you know.’

‘You see the good in everything.’

I stare at the bell tower

knifing into the clouds in the distance.

‘I’ve got other stuff to worry about.

Heating bills and

jobs and

a whole other human to protect.’

‘But isn’t there something you want for yourself?’

And

of course there is.

Of course.

‘Yeah.

There’s something.’

‘Well, go get it! I don’t mean to pry like last time, I really don’t, but there are all sorts of ways you can paint, Rowan. You can do courses from home now, in your spare time. Or you can go to college after w–’

‘No. Not that.’

Where would I get the money for that?

‘I mean –’

And it sort of feels like

J U M P I N G

when I’ve got no idea if she’s even got a net.

‘I mean –

I want –

you,

Alice.’

‘I –’

Oh. My chest waterspouts and seems to drag my insides out.

Me. He wants me.

Silence ain’t golden.

‘Listen.

I love streaming for you. I do.

But –

I don’t know, Alice –

don’t you want more?

Don’t you want to be here?

In real life?’

I do I do I do.

More than anything, I do. But I can’t, can I?

That’s not my real life.

‘I –’

Jonah

P L O U G H S

into me.

All I see is yellow hair.

‘Rowan! Rowan! Benji ate some berry sweets from that tree and now he’s got tummy ache.’

Oh Christ.

I stand up.

See Benji

C L U T C H I N G

his stomach.

(Talk about timing, dude.)

‘Alice. I’m sorry, I –’

‘Go!’ I say.

Relief prickles me.

‘I need to call his mum …’

I don’t want to disconnect.

I want to do what Alice said.

Take something for me.

I feel my words hanging like weights from my bones.

But who knows what the hell those berries were.

‘I’m sorry.’

Rowan is no longer streaming.

54

Alice

He wants me.

He wants. Me.

In my dream, we’re together, suspended in blue. He’s floating just a few centimetres above me – so close that I can feel the water rippling between us like an electric current.