Charley Read Online Free

gentle.
    I felt him move away from the bed. I stretched out my hand. ‘Don’t go,’ I said. My anger and frustration had lessoned a little over the last few days since Natalie’s funeral.
    ‘I’m just going to fetch a cold flannel, your face is burning up,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in just a second.’
    ‘Don’t go,’ I said again, that sense of loneliness I so often felt creeping over me.
    Taking my hand in his, I felt the bed dip as he sat beside me. ‘I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here, Charley.’
    I held his hand against the side of my face and it felt warm. ‘I had more flashes,’ I whispered as he stroked my hair.
    ‘You had another fit,’ he said softly.
    ‘Flashes,’ I whispered and closed my eyes. ‘I don’t have fits. The doctors have all said they can’t find anything wrong with me.’
    ‘I’m going to get a second opinion,’ he said.
    ‘We’ve had six already,’ I said, willing the thudding sensation in my head to go away.
    ‘It’s not normal,’ he said. I flinched and he quickly added, ‘You know what I mean.’
    He meant the fits weren’t normal. He didn’t believe in the flashes.
    Then, to my surprise, he said, ‘What did you see this time, Charley? That’s if you want to talk about it.’
    My father rarely asked what I saw in the flashes. But since Natalie’s death and our argument at her funeral, he too had seemed to mellow just a little. I guessed he felt guilty about everything hehad said about Natalie when she had been alive. Was asking me about my flashes his way of trying to make amends?
    I took a deep breath. ‘A girl,’ I whispered, and although those flashes had long since faded, I could still see her petrified face. I opened my eyes so I didn’t have to see it any more. ‘But it was different this time.’
    ‘How?’ he asked, resting himself against the headboard, so we lay next to each other on my bed. I liked the way he did that. It meant he was going to stay a while and listen to me, instead of running for the hills like he usually did.
    ‘The pictures – the flashes – were more vivid,’ I told him. ‘More real somehow.’
    ‘But you know they’re not real, right?’ he asked. And although this was his standard answer, this time he didn’t sound angry or frustrated. He sounded like he was kinda interested in what I had to say for once.
    ‘They are,’ I whispered, closing my eyes again. I saw the girl’s name. Kerry, the name on her necklace had read, and I could see it swinging before me. Burn by Ellie Goulding played in the background like some hideous soundtrack. I opened my eyes. ‘Her name was Kerry.’
    ‘Whose was?’ he asked.
    ‘The girl I saw tonight. She was being dragged by someone, a man, up a narrow dirt track. She was about my age and she was calling out for her mum. I could hear the girl’s phone ringing and trains thundering past in the distance—’
    ‘But don’t you see?’ my father interrupted.
    ‘See what?’ I asked him.
    ‘Your friend Natalie was recently killed by a train,’ he said. ‘You’ve been through a very traumatic experience, Charley, and your mind is playing tricks on you.’
    ‘The girl I saw wasn’t Natalie,’ I said, wondering if it was him or me I was trying to convince. ‘Natalie’s death was an accident, butthe girl I saw in my flashes was murdered.’
    ‘So what did her killer look like?’ he asked, cocking his eyebrow at me.
    ‘You know I only ever see the victims,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t see his face.’
    ‘So how did you know it was a he ?’
    ‘I heard his voice,’ I said, closing my eyes and trying to hear it again. But it was gone.
    ‘So what did his voice sound like?’
    ‘I dunno,’ I said, opening my eyes and looking at him. ‘It was muffled, like it was coming from behind a wall or something.’
    My father looked at me. Was it despair I could see in his eyes?
    ‘They’re just dreams,’ he said.
    Was he trying to comfort me or persuade