Down World by Rebecca Phelps (best new books to read .txt) 📕

down in the part where the accident had happened. For just a second, seeing the silhouette against the gray splattering rain, I felt like maybe it was him—Robbie. Like somehow he had escaped and had come to find me. I ran towards him.

But, of course, it wasn’t him. And not until I was a few feet away, the silver curtain of rain the only thing between us, did I see that it was Kieren.

He was examining the tracks, as though looking for something, walking with his head down. He didn’t see me approach.

“Kieren!” I called.

He looked up, startled. “Go home, M.”

“What are you looking for?” I asked, my voice cracking a bit.

“Nothing.”

My lips were quivering from the cold and I could feel my whole body tremble.

He threw up his hands, frustrated. “Come on,” he said. “You’re freezing. Let’s get you inside.”

“How did you know to come here?”

“Inside,” was all he said. He took my arm and guided me back down the tracks.

We didn’t speak as I picked up my bike and started pushing it. Kieren lived a block from the station, and I didn’t realize he was taking me to his house until we were at the door.

“Around the back,” he said, taking my bike and leaving it under an eave as we walked around the side of the house to a sliding glass door that led to the downstairs rec room.

The rec room was just as I remembered it from years before, the same posters on the wall of some basketball players I didn’t know from the ’80s. The posters, I assumed, belonged to Mr. Protsky, Kieren’s dad, and I realized in that moment what a great disappointment it must have been to him that his son had no interest in sports.

I came into the room, still trembling. The weakness in my legs wouldn’t go away.

“Jesus, M, why’d you bike to the station in the rain?”

“It was only driz-driz-drizz . . .”

“It’s okay, don’t talk.”

Kieren took off his sweatshirt, glued as it was to his body, and then he came and helped me with mine. I was too cold to be self-conscious about it at that point. He reached down to feel my shoes and socks.

“Your feet are soaked. Okay, wait here. I’m gonna get you some sweats and a T-shirt. Take those shoes off.”

I started to untie my shoes, but my fingers were numb. My teeth were chattering so loudly, I couldn’t hear anything but the clackety-clack of them hitting against each other.

Kieren came back in, wearing dry clothes himself and with some things for me, and saw how helpless I was. “Here,” he said, reaching down to help me with my shoes. “Your pants are drenched. You need to change.”

“T-t-turn around,” I said.

“It’s fine, M. I’ve seen you in a bathing suit, like, a million times.”

“I was ni-ni-ni-nine.”

He just laughed and turned around. “I’m not looking,” he promised. I changed my clothes as quickly as possible while the feeling returned to my fingers. When I was done, I sat on the couch.

There was a laundry area in the corner, and Kieren went and threw my things in the dryer.

I found a throw blanket next to the sofa and wrapped myself in it. I was already starting to feel sleepy, but I knew I had to head back home as soon as the rain stopped. I couldn’t still be gone when my dad woke up in the morning. All he needed was one more scare.

“Feeling better?” Kieren asked when he came back over to the couch. I nodded. I couldn’t help but stare at Kieren’s face as he sat down next to me. His eyelashes were the same as I remembered, and so was the way his hairline came down a bit over his right eye.

He laughed then. I don’t know why. Maybe just the awkwardness of being so close. “I can’t leave you alone for a second, can I?”

“Why were you on the tracks?” I asked. He didn’t respond. “Kieren, please.”

“I just . . . I go there sometimes.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, looked at his feet.

“It’s how I feel close to him,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. “It’s like, some people visit graves. I visit where he died. It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“He’s not at his grave,” Kieren said. “I feel like . . . like he’s somewhere else.”

I had to admit that I felt the same way about Robbie. But still, the coincidence that Kieren was on the tracks after what had happened with my mother, after what she had apparently shouted, just seemed a bit too convenient. What more did Kieren know? What wasn’t he telling me?

“Do you promise there’s no other reason?” I asked. “You said you were working on taking Robbie out. Is that why you were there?”

“No, that’s not it. When I know more about that, I’ll tell you.”

I started to protest, but then he looked me in the eyes and took my hand. “Promise.”

I nodded, feeling hopeless.

“We’ve done all we can for now, M.”

I thought of Robbie, and all the times we had played together in this very room. The endless games of Candyland; the time Kieren had taught us five-card draw, something he had picked up from an old movie he wasn’t supposed to watch.

The tears came hot and full, plopping down on the sweatshirt Kieren had just given me. I couldn’t stop them, and I didn’t try. “My mom is gone,” I said. “She’s been missing since last night, and I have no idea where she went.”

I couldn’t tell if Kieren was surprised by this statement, or if maybe he had already known somehow. He pulled me to him, and held me so tightly my ribcage strained under the pressure of his arms.

I felt Kieren’s lips on my forehead as he whispered things I couldn’t understand. Words that fell around me like the raindrops that still splattered against the roof. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ll fix it.” I looked up at him, and his