Free The Between Years by Derek Clendening

having a tea party, or was I in bed this whole time?

    When he swung his legs over the side of the bed, he sat, rubbed the crusty stuff from his eyes, and told himself that he couldn't cling onto such things. Dreams, as marvellous as they are, are a retreat from real-life pain, and he wouldn't let the possibilities he'd entertained in his sleep arrest him in the waking world.

    Being with Kenny, if only for a while, felt heavenly. Knowing that it was a mirage made his heart ache yet he wouldn't trade it for anything. He'd held him, squeezed him tight, and no one could take the memory from him. Any time he felt sad, he could close his eyes and escape into the dream world.

    Seated on the side of the bed, he turned, and noticed the bedroom door was half-open. He was all but certain he'd closed it last night. The locks and hinges in this old place weren't the greatest, but he hadn't experienced a problem yet. He'd never been a sleepwalker either, at least not that Carol had ever mentioned. Still, he couldn't help but be curious about whether or not he'd been up last night after all.

    He shifted his jaw from side to side, snapped the morning junk in his mouth, and hauled himself to his feet. But he wobbled and teetered like a bowling pin and longed to close his eyes again. How strange, he thought. For years he'd prided himself on being a morning person, always ready to tackle anything the day threw at him, letting nothing slow him down. But now, he felt like his feet had been cased in cement as he dragged himself to the door and stomped down the hall.

    The door to Nana's room was open a crack when he knew it should have been closed. Some serious déjà vu here, he thought. He paused, pushed the door open, and found all of Nana's things missing, replaced by the very setting he'd found last night. The setting he'd dreamt about, he told himself. The walls were still papered sky blue with fluffy clouds, stuffed animals still lined the walls, and a rocking chair still sat in the corner. But the bed wasn't made. The covers had been dragged forward and he found a dent in the pillow. All that was missing was a little boy named Kenny.

    If the bed is empty and used, then where the hell did Kenny go? Randy thought. But his breathing remained steady and he didn't panic. He wanted to convince himself that this was really happening before he worked himself into a lather.

    When he inched into the room, none of the dust that had haunted the four walls before was present. The air smelled fresh like a spring day, as if the windows had been left open all night. The CD player was still plugged in but had been turned off. Randy peeked inside and found a Sesame Street CD.

    In the middle of the room, the tiny wooden table remained. The chairs that he and Kenny had sat in were pulled out. On the table, he found the teacups they'd drank from. He lifted one, found the dregs of old tea in the bottom, and sniffed it. The smell was so fresh.

    In the far corner, he found the rocking chair, and a copy of Love You Forever opened to the last page. He picked the book up and held it to his heart, but he refused to cry. On one hand, he felt like he'd done enough crying to fill an ocean, but one the other hand he realized he no longer had anything to cry about. His hopes and dreams had materialized, his life sentence was over, and he could finally move forward.

    Most of all, what he saw meant that Kenny had to be around here somewhere. How he had found his way into the house, he couldn't begin to guess. He didn't even know how he himself had traveled from this room back to his bed without stirring, without realizing that anything was going on. But he didn't want Randy running around by himself, so he meant to quit reasoning and start looking. The place was old and a kid Kenny's age would find too many ways to get into trouble.

    But what age was Kenny? He remembered having guessed that he was four, but where had those four years gone? Kenny had died-or, at