If You Were Me by Sam Hepburn Read Free Book Online

I never wanted to eat again.
    She hollered up the stairs, ‘Tea’s ready, Ron!’
    Dad came running down, rubbing his hands like a bad actor in a sitcom. ‘Looks great, love. I’m starving.’ He sat down and attacked the mound of food on his plate as if he didn’t have a care in the world. ‘I was just checking out some holiday deals in Turkey. What do you think, Dan? We thought it’d make a nice change from Spain.’
    I stared at the table, not trusting myself to speak. How could he sit there shovelling down mounds of mashed potato, helping himself to gravy and going on about holidays? How were you thinking of paying for it, Dad? With your share of the drug money, or by selling off a few more stolen washing machines?
    Mum frowned at me. ‘What’s the matter, love? Don’t you fancy Turkey?’
    I shrugged. Dad rolled his eyes. ‘Ignore him, he’s been in a strop all afternoon. I’ve hardly had a word out of him.’
    I played up the sulk, hunched my shoulders and picked at my food, trying to remember where I’d left my phone, only my brain was so churned up I couldn’t think straight.
    Mum kept looking at me, wondering why I wasn’t eating, and her eagle eyes homed in on the cut on my head. ‘What’s this?’ She pushed back my hair andinspected my scalp.
    I’d done my best to clean off the blood but I should have known she’d see it. I scowled and shook her hand away. ‘Nothing.’
    â€˜That looks nasty. How did you do it?’
    â€˜Stop fussing, Mum.’ I didn’t want to think about hitting my head or what had been hidden behind the falling junk in the Meadowview basement. But even as I mumbled something about bashing myself on a bathroom cabinet it dawned on me in a horrible rush of panic exactly where I’d last used my phone. It was at Meadowview, when Dad called to tell me to hurry up with the spare pipe. I’d been in the loading bay and I put it down so I could shove the drugs and the washing powder back in the washing machine. I must have forgotten to pick it up. Picturing Dad or Jez walking in there and finding it made me feel sick. That couldn’t happen. I’d sworn to myself I’d never set foot in that place ever again and now, just when I thought my life couldn’t get any crappier, I’d have to go back there to get my phone.
    But I wasn’t going to risk doing it in daylight. After tea I took my skateboard down the park till it got dark, then I hung around in my room, playing half-hearted games on the PlayStation, waiting for Mum and Dad to go to bed before I nicked Jez’s keys out of Dad’s jacket, snuck out of the house and biked it over to Meadowview.
    The car park was even creepier at night. It looked deserted but you could feel there were people around,hiding in the shadows, watching from the darkened windows. I walked fast, trying to make out I was a kid from one of the flats, coming home late. I crept down to the basement and as I let myself in something rustled the litter in the stairwell. I swung round, peering into the darkness. What if I’d been followed? What if Dad turned up when I was in the loading bay? It was weird. There was this big black hole in my mind sucking in everything I thought I knew about him and twisting it into something dark and distorted.
    At least I’d brought a proper torch with me this time so I wouldn’t break my neck tripping over. I fumbled my way across the rubble, beginning to wonder if the mess was just a way to keep people out.
    Shifting all the scaffolding and oil drums again took ages, because I was trying to keep the noise down, and I was sweating hard by the time I stepped into the loading bay. Get in. Grab the phone. Get out. That was the plan.
    But where was it? I flashed the torch around, peering between the boxes, feeling inside the washing machines, going crazy. Come on, Dan. Start by the door. Do it