Someone I Used to Know by Paige Toon

Author:Paige Toon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2021-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

That afternoon, I stand in the corridor and knock on Jamie and George’s bedroom door.

‘George? Are you in there?’

He got back from visiting his father in prison an hour ago. Dad said he was very quiet on the way home – he doesn’t think he’ll want company.

‘George?’

Still no answer.

I open the door. The room is empty.

Mum comes along the corridor, carrying Nia.

‘Do you know where George is?’ I ask.

‘He went outside.’

‘Did you see in which direction?’

‘Towards the stream? The lower paddock? I’m not sure. Ouch,’ she says as Nia grabs a fistful of her hair.

‘Okay.’ I close his door and go downstairs to pull on my wellies.

George is not by the stream or the chicken pen, nor is he with the boys in the lower paddock. I find him in our small wood, leaning against the big old oak that was here long before any of us.

He looks over at me as my boots crackle through the path of fallen twigs.

‘Hi,’ I say gently, coming to a stop in front of him.

He’s balancing a notepad on his lap and is holding a pen in his left hand. The page is half full of his handwriting. Another letter to Sophie, I presume.

‘I thought you were doing your Art homework.’

‘No.’

‘You know it’s due tomorrow?’

He shrugs and gazes up at me, his expression bleak.

‘Are you okay?’

He shrugs again, more half-heartedly.

I almost ask if he wants to be left in peace, but something makes me sit down next to him instead.

Neither of us says anything as we listen to the rustling of the leaves overhead.

I shift slightly and my shoulder brushes his. He doesn’t move away.

After a while he closes up his notepad.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘S’all right,’ he mumbles. ‘I didn’t feel like writing anyway.’

I nod at the pad. ‘Any more news on when you’re seeing her?’

‘Your dad thinks the week after next.’

‘Finally!’

‘Yeah. I thought I’d pass the letters on then. Even if she doesn’t read them until she’s older, at least she’ll have something to remember me by.’

‘That sounds good.’ I pause before saying, ‘I’m guessing today didn’t go so well.’

‘When does it ever go well?’

I sigh. ‘I’ve never been to a prison before.’

‘You’re lucky then.’

‘What’s it like?’ I ask.

‘Big. Cold. Full of terrifying people. Not a place I ever want to end up.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘There’s not much to say.’

‘Was he mean to you?’

He hesitates. ‘No. He was indifferent, which is probably worse. He was late, so we only had five minutes. He couldn’t even be arsed to look at me. I hate him,’ he says through gritted teeth.

‘You don’t have to go there again,’ I tell him heatedly. ‘He might be made up of some of the same cells as you, but that doesn’t make him worth your time. Who gives a shite about biology?’

I feel some of the tension leave his body with a long exhale. I rest my chin on his shoulder and he tilts his face towards me. I grind my jaw on his shoulder.

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