The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

“How did you get it?”

“Little bastard sent it to Beth.”

“Shit. What is it?”

“You.”

Colin shifted uncomfortably. Forgot about grounding his thumb against his finger and rubbed his palms against his knees, as if they had suddenly gotten itchy.

“Happens all the time these days. They record us in secret when we…”

“This wasn’t done in secret.”

Colin didn’t really want to take the tablet from her but couldn’t think how to refuse. He asked, “Is Beth upset?”

Denise raised her hands. “She’s upset. I’m upset. It’s upsetting.”

The clip started in his normal classroom. Marcus Potts and Heather Buzu were giggling into the camera, Potts saying, “Check it out! He’s fucking lost it, man.”

Then cut to Colin himself, standing in the front of the classroom, beside his table. The white board behind him showed The War of the Roses.

“This was just last week. Thursday, I think.”

On screen, Colin was standing there, but that was all he was doing. He looked frozen in place, his mouth slightly open as though he was in the act of saying something, his right arm out from his side a few inches. Potts, clearly holding a phone, backed up, recording himself as he approached Colin. Another student bounced between them, laughing, and someone else ran around the back, apparently playing some sort of tag game around Colin, who remained immobile. There was a lot of noise in that room.

Now Potts and Buzu were standing either side of him, posing and giggling. Buzu stood on tiptoes and pretended to kiss his cheek. She said, “Bin like this five minutes, innit.”

Then Colin seemed to give himself a shake and come back from wherever he had been. He blinked and frowned and looked around. “What are you doing out of your seats? Sit down and simmer down, you lot. Now, where were we?”

He turned to look at the white board, and started talking, resuming his lecture on the Plantagenets.

Colin, sitting in his living room at home, found that he could recall that moment, when he chased the students back into their seats, the struggle to get them focused on the medieval struggle for the English throne.

“I sound surprisingly Scottish.”

Denise put her hand on his. “Colin, what’s happening? Where were you?”

Colin knew very well where he had been, but it wasn’t something he wanted to tell his wife.

He started the clip again, frowning as he stared more closely at himself, the students hopping and playing around him. Laughing. Shouting even.

He jerked suddenly, and pointed. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

He moved the curser back again. “Don’t you think the kids look kind of…blurry?”

“It’s been taken on some kind of phone.”

“The classroom isn’t blurry. I’m not blurry.”

“You’re standing still! They’re not.”

“And look, right there.”

Colin replayed again, and again as Denise stared, not at the screen, but at him, staying quiet.

“Can’t you see it? It’s like a jump in the film. Like all the kids wink out, just for a fraction of a second. And the sound goes. It’s silent.”

“You’re scaring me now.”

Colin tried over and over to catch the moment, the millisecond. Finally, he pointed. “Look.”

The frozen image was badly out of focus. But it seemed to show Colin standing in a completely empty classroom. One with no children in it. Denise pressed her lips together and made an obvious attempt to stay cool.

“What do you think you see?”

Colin pointed to the screen. He wanted to say, You asked where I was? I was right there. On my own.

“Doesn’t that look odd to you?”

“It’s a blurry still from a video taken on a phone, by a kid who was jumping around because his teacher had gone into a trance.”

When he didn’t reply, she asked, “Are you still going to that therapist? The Button Lady?”

“Occasionally.”

“You need to make an appointment, and show this to her.”

The reason Colin called Dr. Tambini “The Button Lady” was, unsurprisingly, because of a button. A big, fake plastic one that sat on a table beside her clients. It wasn’t attached to anything, but it could still switch things off. It represented safety. She had told Colin, you can talk about anything in here, anything at all. If things ever get too heavy, to find yourself in the deep woods and don’t like it, just press the button and we move on to something else. Kind of like a reset.

He had never pressed the button. Now, Denise stood right in front of him and put her hands on his arms.

“You’ll go and see her?”

“Ok.”

“And bring this with you, I’m serious. She needs to know, Colin.”

“Best seats in the house.”

Colin had said those words the first time he took Beth to see London Pulse, and now it was what she said every time. Colin had hated the idea of going to football or netball, all those crowds, shouting and getting excited, but Beth’s pester power was significant, and she had no qualms about laying on the emotional blackmail.

Now, sitting in the reserved section to see Pulse take on Bath, watching the netball players fly back and forward only feet away, she leaned towards him and said, “I’m scared. But I know I have to.”

Beth never admitted to being scared, about anything. It was as though she was determined to avoid admitting to anything negative.

“What do you mean?”

“The operation.” She indicated the players, moving so gracefully around the court. “If it works, I can play netball. I’ll be good at it.”

He compressed his lips and looked away, wondering why she had chosen this moment to talk about the surgery, but glad, for once, of the noise and distraction.

“I bet you will.”

“I was good at volleyball, before I got ill.”

“I know.”

“So, netball. It’s what I want to do.”

“I don’t see why not, the height of you. And there’s nothing to be scared of.”

“There’s a one in twenty chance I won’t wake up.”

Right on the money. He had to put something into it, make sure his voice was normal. “Who told you that?”

She shrugged. “You can find that stuff online. I’ve got