The Inbetween

Within seconds she was standing in the hallway of Nathan’s house. Wow, she thought to herself, her ‘powers’, so to speak, were increasing today. She’d never been inside Nathan’s house in the three years he’d lived there with the boys, so how she could end up here she didn’t know.

The house was silent as the boys had obviously not returned home yet – she’d be surprised if they’d reached the graveyards gates by now. She took it upon herself to snoop around their house, but left Nathan’s room until last. Upon entering she immediately noted that he hadn’t changed much in his attitude towards cleaning. This made her smile. Around his room she found small trinkets in her memory, and she also found an old shoebox that belonged to her. She opened the lid and smiled at the sight of her favourite t-shirt folded to fit the box. She removed that and found all of her gig tickets that she’d always kept in that box. There were also pictures of her and Nathan when they were younger, and their parents, too. She picked a few up as she rummaged through the box then placed them all back as she’d found them, before putting the lid back on the box.

She closed Nathan’s door behind her and made her way down to their living room. She sat on the sofa and glanced at the coffee table – which had a few coffee mugs and pens strewn over it – and saw it had two small drawers on either side of it. One had lots of sheets of loose-leaf paper sticking out of it and her curiosity took hold. She sat forward and pulled a few sheets out, seeing instantly that it was Nathan’s writing. She read over the paper – some song ideas, she presumed – and smiled. He’d never used proper grammar or spelling when writing songs, she remembered, and couldn’t help but notice all the mistakes he’d made. This always used to bug her, and still did now.

Glancing around as if wondering if she was going to get caught no matter how impossible, she picked up one of the pens from the table and set to work, adding little blue pen marks or rewriting words on the paper. Part of her wondered why she was doing this, but an even bigger part of her knew that she hoped maybe Nathan would notice. Halfway through her little writing jaunt however, the front door opened and in walked the owners of this house. She let out a small sound of surprise, pushed the paper away from her slightly and fired the pen across the table, causing it to fall off the other end. She almost flinched to hide away but remembered she was invisible to them. Instead she took to standing up, stepping back and observing.

Siva had been first through the door, “Did anyone see that pen?”

“I thought I saw something, was it a pen, yeah?” Tom said, moving by Siva a little and searching around the coffee table. He knelt down and picked up the pen just as Nathan, Max and Jay closed the door behind them. “This one?” he picked it up and showed Siva.

“Yeah...” He frowned at the pen as if asking it ‘why?’ but shook his head as Tom shrugged and placed the pen back down on the table before standing up.

“Lunch,” Was all he said before he set off in the direction of the kitchen with a determined look in his eyes and soon the clashing of pots and pans and the opening and closing of cupboard doors could be heard. Siva flopped down on the sofa and flicked on the TV, Jay jumping down next to him and Nathan delicately sitting on the other sofa. Holly watched him as his head lolled back for a few moments before he brought his head back up and his eyes rested on the TV.

She didn’t know what she was doing; this whole thing sounded so stupid to her now, and she almost left. But as always in her life, drama was around the corner. Nathan had drawn in a deep breath and she mentally prepared herself for his temper.

“Why is this lying out?” he asked calmly and Holly frowned.

“I don’t know, wasn’t it lying out when you left?”

“Do I ever leave stuff like that lying when I leave?” he asked with an edge to his voice as he picked up the paper, “Oh, for fucks sake! Who wrote on it?” He demanded.

“Not me!” Tom called in from the kitchen.

“Not me, either,” Jay said.

“Or me,” Max and Siva chorused then frowned.

“Well somebody must’ve,” he muttered with a bitter edge to his tone as he properly read it. He frowned then read it again, moving the paper further away from him as he got further down the page then bringing it back again as he read from the top. His eyes were getting wider and Holly’s heart was beating faster, and her breathing was also getting pretty fast. His eyes squinted and he shifted his head one way and the paper another way, as if studying the writing. Holly could pick out the exact moment when he figured it out. His jaw hit the floor, his eyebrows hit his hairline and the paper hit the coffee table as he threw it as far away from him as possible then pulled his feet up onto the sofa and his knees to his chest.

“Wow, wow! Don’t do that! What’s up?” Jay asked after having jumped in fright into Siva.

“I- That... The- Oh God, I- Shit. Fuck! The pen! I- Oh shit, shit, shit!” he was frantically pointing at the paper and the pen and was stumbling over his words. Siva was quick to switch off the TV and kneel in front of Nathan who’d gone extremely quiet and was just staring. Holly stood up and moved again, feeling stressed. She paced behind the coffee table and watched the scene unfold before her.

“Just calm down and breathe, right Nath? Then tell us what’s up.” He said with his calming voice.

“Look at the paper.” Nathan said almost immediately, having gathered his emotions and his thoughts. He put his feet back on the ground again as Jay picked up the paper then kneeled beside Siva in front of Max and they all read it together. When Nathan saw that they weren’t going to click on he cleared his throat, “The blue pen.”

It took them another moment, but they noticed what he was getting at. “It’s hers, isn’t it?” Jay asked and Nathan nodded.

“Are you sure?” Siva asked, “I mean, it could be someone else’s-”

“Whose? Who else’s could it be, Seev?” Nathan asked frantically.

Siva stumbled for a moment, “It could be Natalie’s! She’s always over here!”

“At ten thirty in the morning?” Jay pointed out, “Without any of us being in the house?” He sounded doubtful.

“Siva you can’t deny that! Natalie’s writing’s like a dog’s fucking breakfast!” Nathan said standing up. “Was her writing ever messy? Did she ever have any grammatical errors?” Nathan paused and cocked his head to the side. “That might be why she wrote on it, actually.” Holly smiled to herself.

“Nath, are you hearing yourself?” Siva asked calmly.

“Yes, I’m bloody well hearing myself!” Nathan snapped and picked up the paper again.

“You’re saying your little sister came here to correct your fucking grammar! Do you know how insane that sounds?!” Nathan turned on Siva with dark, dark eyes that frightened Holly. She’d never seen her brother like that before, and didn’t want to see it for much longer.

“Stop it!” she yelled, well aware it’d do no use. Jay, Siva and Max glanced at the kitchen as if a shout had been heard from there but glanced back at Nathan.

“Don’t tell me what sounds insane or not.” Nathan said and Siva rolled his eyes. Holly remembered what happened at the graveyard, with the touching and talking, and thought to give it a try again. Anything to stop them fighting. She walked to Nathan but stopped just before she reached him, glancing at Siva. She quickly changed her mind and hopped over the corner of the coffee table to Siva. Again she hesitated, it wasn’t guaranteed to work twice in a row, but what choice did she have?

“Siva,” she whispered when she got close enough to him, “Siva?” She sighed when he continued to glance between the boys and the paper she’d written on. She hesitantly put her hand on his shoulder, using it to pull herself closer to his ear, “Siva, it’s-”

“Shit!” he jumped back and Holly jolted a little with fright.

Tom appeared at the doorway from the kitchen. “What’s going on?” Jay looked at him and shrugged before going back to looking at Siva like he was crazy.

“You heard her, didn’t you?” Nathan asked, seemingly not fazed by Siva’s outburst, as the same had happened to him not one hour ago.

“It can’t have been...”

“What did she say to you?”

“She didn’t say anything!” Siva said, and fear was plain in his eyes. “She can’t be here!”

“Wait, so what you’re saying is that Holly’s here?” Jay asked slowly, pointing to the ground as if to indicate the room.

Nathan shrugged, “Maybe, maybe not. But it would explain why her writing’s on this and why Siva just heard her… and why I heard her in the graveyard.”