Until Tomorrow

Kelly was worried for her sister, and it felt weird, because she hadn’t worried about anybody but herself for a whole year. She felt like a new mother, who was still figuring out how to be a good parent and had lost their kid in a supermarket. That initial paralysing fear gripped her heart as she called Becca’s cell phone, praying she’d pick up. Was this what it had been like for Becca? The waiting, the wondering… how had she ever pushed through it? What had Kelly done to her?

Her father’s words rang in her ears, echoed and bounced around her head. She couldn’t forget them. It was like that was the only part of their brief conversation she’d listened to.

"You know what you did just about killed your sister."

Kelly wandered into the kitchen, where her mother was still baking. “Hey Mum?” she said. Her mother looked up from the large mixing bowl she had in her hands, a small smile on her face. “What is it, Kelly?” she asked her daughter.

“Where’s Becca?”

“Probably with that group of boys,” her mother replied, shifting her attention back to the mixing bowl in her hands. Kelly furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. What boys? Becca had always been a shifter – shifting from group to group but never really settling down in one or making any close friends.

“Well, she’s not answering her phone…”

“Don’t worry about her, Kelly. She knows she has to be back by seven. She’s always right on time,” her mother said.

“Because she’s the responsible one, right?” Kelly shot back at her. Her mother looked up at her, her lips turning down at the corners in a frown. “Kelly…”

“Forget it,” Kelly said. “Just call me when dinner is ready.”

She walked up the hallway towards her old bedroom, but stopped at Becca’s door instead. She couldn’t believe what she saw in front of her. It was like a completely different person had moved in. Before she’d left, Becca’s room had been organized and tidy – nothing sticking out. It was the type of room that looked like no one lived in it. That wasn’t the case anymore.

Posters of indie bands covered the walls, along with countless fliers advertising a concert for a band called Tonight Alive. The band name struck something within Kelly. Hadn’t she heard of that band before, somewhere? What intrigued Kelly more, however, were the hundreds of photos that cluttered another wall in the room. She stood before them, studying each one, and noticed that a black-haired boy featured in a lot of them with her sister, both of them smiling and looking completely happy.

What had Kelly come back to? What was she stepping her big foot right in the middle of? Should she have just stayed away? The way things looked in the photographs, her sister had moved on and figured out a way to live without her.

Just as Kelly was about to leave the room, one particular photo stuck out. On closer inspection, she realized that she recognized the person in the photo that was captured sitting on a skateboard with a lopsided smile. She gasped as she stepped backwards, her blood running cold.

The familiar face was the blonde boy from Perth. The one that had seen straight through her. Somehow, he knew Becca. They were bound to meet again at some point, granted Becca still wanted her sister in her life. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and Kelly had the sudden urge to hit the ground running once again.

But she just couldn’t. Not after what she’d already put her family through. Her Dad seemed so infuriated about the whole thing. She was still having trouble trying to gauge her mother’s reactions and read her expressions. Kelly guessed she’d figured that everything had just sort of paused when she left the first time, but it seemed as though everyone had moved on without her.