The Inbetween

Nathan threw the front door open as soon as he reached it and marched towards the stairs, determination in his mind. He took the stairs two at a time until he was in his room. When he got there he threw himself onto his knees beside his bed and shoved his arm underneath, stretching it out and feeling to the left. He didn’t need to look – his hand automatically found it due to how much he’d done this before. His fingertips brushed the corners of the box and he took a deep breath, his heart thudding as he pulled out the box and placed it on the bed. Next was his bedside table; he rummaged through the drawers there, pulling out everything he could think of that related back to Holly including pictures and her personal stuff. He put everything he found on the bed beside the box then moved to his wardrobe. He pulled open the doors then dragged the majority of the stuff out of it until he reached a box buried deep at the bottom, and put that on the bed with everything else. He stood, slightly out of breath, hands on his hips, staring down at all the stuff. Now that it was all displayed in front of him he had no idea where to start, or if any of it would even help.

“What are you doing?” Holly’s voice made him jump and he clutched at his heart as he turned around. She was standing at his door, glancing at his bed.

“I don’t really know what I’m looking for or where to start,” he shrugged, turning back to the stuff.

“You’ll get this, I know you will,” Holly smiled as she joined him at his side. “I remember this,” she said after a few quiet moments. She reached forward and picked up a picture of them both when she was as young as two. “It’s crazy that I remember this, actually…” She ran her finger over it lightly before passing it to Nathan. He recognised it immediately and laughed.

“Yeah, I broke your hand that day; I don’t really know how you couldn’t remember that.” They were at the local park late one summer night. Their parents had woken them up from sleeping on the sofa after having watched TV and took them to the park. It was about ten o’clock at night, but with it being the height of summer it was still pretty light. Nathan had tried to race Holly to the swings and had allowed her to win, what with her only being two and not being able to run very well. He held her hand the whole way, then made a big show about how she bet him, making her giggle. He’d done his best to help her up onto the baby swings, but had to admit defeat and let his dad put her in it instead. He clambered into the swing next to her and they both swung for a while, their mum snapping the picture they now held in their hands. A while after the picture was taken Nathan got bored and clambered out of his swing, taking over his dad’s job of pushing Holly on the swing. He pushed her too hard though, and she tumbled forward, falling out of the swing and landing on her tiny arm causing it to break.

“You’re still an asshole for that,” she smiled.

He scoffed; “Hardly. Clearly I was the favourite – I didn’t even get grounded for that.”

Holly’s jaw dropped in mock shock; “Cos it was an accident! I was the favourite!” They both laughed as Nathan let the picture fall back down onto the bed.

“Right,” he said, determination replacing the sadness in his eyes. “I’m going to figure this out.”

Just under three hours later Holly groaned. “This is useless, Nathan.”

“It’s not!” He rubbed at his eyes.

“Tell me what you know, then,” she sighed, stretching her legs out in front of her. He hung his head in defeat. “Exactly,” she moved forward and sat in front of Nathan. “Just stop okay. You’re looking at all the wrong things.”

“What am I supposed to be looking at then?”

“We’ve been through this! I can’t talk about it! Just… just keep thinking back to what I showed you in the café. It’ll click at one point. Don’t think too hard. I promise you it’ll click.”

“But not soon enough,” His eyes brimmed with tears and she didn’t know what to do, so she just pulled him into her arms.

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered. After a few minutes of silence she pulled away; “Come on, there’s half an hour left… Let’s just go sit with the boys.”

“In a minute,” he said quietly. She nodded and sat back down in front of him. They spent the next twenty minutes talking about the same stuff they’d been talking about all day; memories from when they were younger.

A knock sounded on the door at ten to midnight. Holly’s stomach lurched as Jay’s head popped around the door; “Just wondering how you’re getting on? It’s nearly midnight,” he added.

Nathan sighed; “We’re coming.” He stood up and pulled Holly up with him. “No luck,” he forced a smile to Jay on his way out. Jay offered Holly a sympathetic smile as she walked by. She smiled back at him; she’d always liked Jay, he was always good with advice.

“Hey,” he pulled on her arm slightly making her stop. “It’ll be okay. And even if it is only today that all of this can happen, with you being here and all, we know now that you’re definitely going to be here with us. None of us will give up, I promise. You’re worth every second of this.”

Tears sprung to Holly’s eyes again. She never realised how much she had meant to all of the boys. He pulled her into a hug and she smiled; “Thanks.” That was all she could manage. He placed a kiss on her head.

“C’mon,” he led the way back to the living room. Holly started to feel sick; she didn’t want to leave everyone behind. It hadn’t been that long – under twenty four hours – but she already felt so attached to these boys. Or, rather, re-attached. Max must have noticed her freezing in place as if she’d been punched in the gut, because he made his way over to her, wrapping her in a hug.

“It’ll be alright,” he swayed her gently.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Tom said as he appeared in her line of vision, “We won’t fuck it up.”

She laughed through the tears that were now falling down her face, “I know; I’ll haunt you forevermore if you do, though, so fair warning to you.”

He grinned at her but she didn’t miss the sparkling of his eyes. When Max let her go Tom was quick to pretty much tackle her. She laughed again – Tom always could make her laugh – and held him tight. She wanted to break down, scream that she wanted to stay, but she knew that would tear Nathan apart more than anything else that had happened already, so she stayed quiet, allowing her tears to drip from her face and onto Tom’s t-shirt.

She glanced up when Siva cleared his throat. He smiled, holding out his arms and it was her turn to do the tackling. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you were here earlier,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be; this isn’t exactly textbook,” she said.

“You can count on us,” he said softly and she squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She could no longer speak so nodded her head against his chest. He stroked her hair for a few moments before she felt herself being moved from his arms and right into someone else’s. She knew immediately that it was Jay – Jay gave the best hugs. Jay didn’t even need to say anything. He’d said all that he needed to already, so he squeezed her tight and kissed her head one more time before stepping back and looking her straight in the eye. He didn’t even bother trying to hide the fact that he was crying. He smiled at her, nodding his head before turning away slightly and standing beside Tom, who put a hand on his shoulder.

Holly took a shaky breath and turned to face Nathan. “Holly-” he started but didn’t finish. She stumbled and black spots clouded her vision.

“No,” she muttered, forcing her eyes to stay open. It was already starting; this meant she had only a couple of minutes to go. She reached out and grabbed Nathan’s collar, pulling him towards her and hugging him tightly, finally letting go and allowing her sobs to be heard. “I’ll miss you,” she said quickly, “But I’ll always be here with you, with all of you, I promise.”

“Holly, I love you, okay? I never told you as often as I should have. You’ll always be my baby sister,” His voice was beyond breaking, but he was beyond caring. “It’s cruel that you were taken away, and it’s cruel that you only got today-”

“At least I got today though,” she said into his chest. “Please don’t miss me too much,” she choked back another sob, gasping as she felt a pull on her chest and saw stars dancing behind her eyelids. “All of you,” she leaned back but didn’t let go of Nathan, and he wasn’t planning on letting her go because he grabbed her hand. She could no longer see; the blackness had eaten away at her eyes by now. Usually she would have just closed her eyes, but not today.

Nathan watched as Holly’s eyes shone a bright white before turning black. It was clear she could no longer see as she was moving her head in the direction of where she thought everyone was standing as she spoke. He was slightly aware of the fact that Max had come to stand beside him and had placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, kid,” he said quietly into Nathan’s ear.

Nathan nodded his head fast, wanting to believe Max, but how could it be okay? He was losing his baby sister for the second time in his life, and that was not okay. “Nathan, I believe in you, alright? I do. I… I-I-” It was clear she was trying to get something else out, but she wasn’t going to be able to. Her breathing had picked up so much that she might even have been mistaken for hyperventilating. She gripped tighter to Nathan’s collar, making him stumble forward slightly. He kept a tight grip on her wrist until she started fading before their eyes.

All at once, she heard the five boys shouting words of encouragement to her. She smiled, tears still running down her face as she took another large gasp of air.

Everything went silent.

She could no longer feel Nathan’s collar in her hand.

She couldn’t feel the warmth of Nathan’s hand around her wrist, either.

She couldn’t hear anything.

She couldn’t see anything.

She felt cold.

Her fringe fluttered over her eye.

She twitched her nose.

She was still for a moment.

Then she took a huge gasp of air, sitting bolt upright.

Her eyes sprung open.

And sure enough, there she was in the middle of the road.

Eight AM again.