Free Dead Statues by Tim O'Rourke Page A

myself talking to him.
    “Isidor, believe it or not, I know what it feels like to have a broken heart. I loved a girl once but she’s gone now, and in a way, it was the best thing that could have happened to me, because I would’ve never met Kiera,” I had told him.
    “But I haven’t met anyone else, that’s my point ,” Isidor tried to explain to me. “I don’t have anybody. Melody hasn’t gone, she is here somewhere, we will meet again – the picture proves that.”
    To remember hearing him say that he had no one made me swallow hard. It had been difficult to hear it back then, but even more difficult for me to remember.
    “I know about pictures and stuff that seem to have been pushed between the two worlds, and no good will come of it,” I had tried to warn him. “But believe me, Isidor, that picture of you and Melody, just like the letters that got pushed over to the girl I once loved, only led to suffering, and eventually, her death. Please come with us, Isidor, I don’t want to leave you behind.”
    Flicking my half-smoked cigarette away, I sniffed back the tears which were now leaking from the corners of my eyes as I remembered asking him to come with us. I really hadn’t wanted to leave him behind.
    “I’m staying, Potter, I know what I’m doing,” Isidor had said.
    Then with tears rolling off my chin, I heard myself say to Isidor, “I’m sorry. I never meant to put you down or hurt you. You are my friend – you’re my brother.”
    I was sorrier than anyone would ever know. If I could go back, I would have dragged Isidor from that waiting room. I wouldn’t have let him stay, even if I’d had to fight with him. Not because I was in the shit now, but because I missed him. He was my friend – he had been like a younger brother to me and I shouldn’t have left him behind. Teasing him with a few names hadn’t been my crime, leaving him behind had.
    Then, just like I had in that waiting room, I whispered aloud, “I’m sorry, Isidor.”
    How was I ever going to put things right with Kayla again? With Kiera again? Both of them thought I was a dick and they were probably both right about that. With the wind drying my tears, I looked back up at the window. The sound of Kayla’s sobs had stopped. Not wanting to go back into the house and face Murphy’s and Sam’s accusing stares, but needing to speak to Kayla, I opened my wings and flew the short distance up to her window. I hovered outside, cupping my hands against the glass, and peering inside. Kayla lay on a narrow bed in the far corner, her back to the window and me. Taking a deep breath, I tapped against the windowpane. Startled, she glanced back over her shoulder. Seeing it was me, she jabbed her middle finger in the air, and lay back down again.
    Nice! She was feeling better already, I thought. That was the Kayla I knew and loved.
    I tapped against the window again with my knuckles.
    “Fuck off!” I heard her muffled reply from behind the glass.
    I tapped again.
    “I said, Fuck off, Potter!” she shouted louder than the first time.
    I tapped against the window once more.
    Then through the glass, I watched as she sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed and came marching towards the window. Her hair was angry red, and her eyes were cold blue.
    “What part of fuck off don’t you understand?” she shouted, hands on her hips.
    “Let me in, Kayla, its freezing out here,” I said through the glass.
    “Good!” she snapped. “I hope you freeze to death.”
    “Don’t be like that,” I said softly. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
    “I can hear you just fine from in here,”
    she snapped back.
    “I can’t talk to you from out here,” I said.
    “Go on, let me in. Just give me five minutes, and if you’re still mad at me after that, I promise to fuck off and never come back.”
    With her eyes fixed on mine, and her face beginning to soften, she said, “Potter, have you been crying?”
    “Yes,” I said, knowing that