He's After Me

Chapter FORTY-NINE



Where are you, Livi?

My beautiful, blonde, bursting-with-life baby sister?

Where have you gone?

It’s so quiet here without you. Quiet as the grave.

I can’t bear it.

Though for weeks it was manic. Your smiling face was on the telly, you see. And the front page of the paper.

So many flowers left at Wharfside. The traffic couldn’t get through. You had no idea how popular you were.

So many cards. Hundreds of them. From family, friends, neighbours, teachers, dinner ladies, shopkeepers … People I never even knew you knew. Little kids you stopped and spoke to; old people you said hello to … They all loved you.

Shame they waited till you were gone to say how amazing you are.

Were.

I can’t believe you’re dead.

Your friends set up a Facebook page for you. They’ve called it: Livi: the brightest star. You lit up the lives of so many people, you see. I wish you could see what they’ve written. I spend hours on it, reading the comments.

Zoe wrote: I miss your smile.

I do too.

Ben wrote: I loved the laughs we had together.

I never thought about you when I dumped him. Sorry, Livi.

Ferret wrote: You were the best.

Bit late for that.

Some of your teachers have joined your page and said what a lovely student you were.

Who’d have thought you had so many fans? Seems like you were everyone’s best friend.

Even Cora’s. She wrote how she will never take off the bracelet you gave her. She added a picture of herself wearing it.

That was my bracelet, Livi. I wondered where it had gone.

It’s OK, I don’t mind. She can keep it.

Everyone’s posting pictures.

Most are recent, of you with your cropped hair and your cool clothes, arms flung round someone’s shoulders, beaming or pouting into the camera.

Some are years old, when your hair was long, your knees were scuffed and your smile had a gap in it.

I’d forgotten how sweet you were.

I thought you would live for ever. Now all I’m left with is a page on a website and a folder full of cards and newspaper articles.

I miss you, Livi.

One day someone posted a picture of you that took my breath away. You were laughing out loud in it, your blonde head tilted back, your mouth open wide, displaying your perfect white teeth. Even with your eyes practically closed, your face sparkled with life and energy and mischief. You were glowing.

It was you, completely you, in a way the hundreds of other posed pictures failed to be.

And I knew. Even before I saw his name, I knew who had posted it.

His parting gift to me.

It was the last one he ever took of you. Up on the roof. You were having the very best time of your life.

Minutes later, you were dead.

Jem caused chaos wherever he went. But he never meant that to happen, Liv, not for a minute. I’m convinced of it.

It’s my fault. All of it. For falling in love with him. And you’re the only one who could understand, because you did too.

In the confusion Jem got away. I stared at you lying there like a broken doll and I couldn’t take it in.

I still can’t.

I looked up and saw him gazing down at you. Then he leapt into space and landed on the roof of the next building, one storey down.

I don’t know what he did after that, but I can guess.

He would have kept going forwards, scaling walls, jumping obstacles, dropping into hiding places. He’d have dived, vaulted, spun, flipped, climbed, straddled, rotated and pushed his way to freedom.

Jem just kept on running, without a backward glance, till he was gone.

He left me.

And you left me too.

Where are you, Livi?

Please answer me.