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“Were you lonely without me?” When Sean continued staring out of the window, Drew sighed. “It’s not that bad, you know,” he said.

“Which part? The part where I’m technically dead, or the part where
you’re
the only company I have?”

“I’m just saying,
I know what
it’s
like
.”

“No, you don’t,” Sean shot back angrily. “You ended up like th
is naturally, but I was never supposed to die
.
You took this from me,
murderer.
”

The other
winced slightly at the harsh word. “I’m not a murderer
.”

“Then give me my body back.”

“No.”

“Why are you even trying to…
sympathise
with me? You’re the one who did this in the first place.”

Drew shrugged. “Well, if I have to put up with you for a few years, I just figure that it would be better if we were on friendly terms.”

Sean scoffed
in derision
. “
In your
dreams.”

“So does this mean we can’t be bffs?”

“
What?
”

“Best friends forever. Is there anything you
do
know?”

Sean had never felt so frustrated. He felt like stamping childishly, slamming a door, punching his fist into a wall, screaming,
something.
Something to show that he was still human. “I’m sick of this,” he spat. “I’m leaving.”

“There’s nowhere to leave to,” Drew said airily.

“Well, anywhere’s better than being around you. I’m going to leave and work out how to get my body back alone.”

“You can’t. You lose strength the fur
ther away you are from me
. It’ll make you fade out quicker.”

“Well what else can I do?” Sean ground out.

“St
ick around here for a while,” Drew
suggested. “Just wait and see.”

“See what?”

“Well, you have to do the waiting part first.” Sean sighed again in irritation. “It’s not that bad,” Drew repeated. “Just learn some patience.”

“
I
hate
you.”

Drew sighed.
“
I
didn’t think you’
d mind this much, to be honest,”
he admitted,
as if to somehow justify his actions.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sean glared.

“You were never really h
appy with your life,
” Drew said it as a fact: plain and blunt.
“I spent months observing you
, Sean. You can’t lie t
o me. I kn
ow you
weren’t happy.”

“Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
Sean tried to deny weakly, but secretly knew there was no point in it
. “There was nothing wrong with my life, before you showed up.”

“Who are you trying to convince of that?”

“I’m not trying to convince anyone, it’s true.”

“I don’t believe you.”
Sean sudden
ly hated how accusing those
eyes were.
“You were bored with life, Sean. You didn’t even want it. You felt alone, misunderstood, angry because no one bothered trying to understand you. I’m right, aren’t I?” Sean’s scowl confirme
d it and Drew smiled darkly at his victory, pressing
on.
“
I can tell just by looking at you that it’s true. S
o why, tell me, do you care so
much now that you’re
literally
invisible instead of just being
figuratively
invisible?”

“
I didn’t want to
die
.
”

“But you didn’t really want to live, either
. I probably wouldn’t have been able to separate your sou
l from your body if you’re will to live had been strong enough,
”
Drew said.
“What were you thinking about that day you were hit by the car, then? I was watching you. You looked…like you’d given up.”

Sean
hated how true it was, but more than that he hated how this stranger could suddenly read him like
a
children’s picture book.
How this stranger could suddenly read him better than the people he had known his whole life.
For a m
oment it was a tense stalemate.
“You
still
had no right to
do
that wh
ile I was defenceless,” he
s
aid finally.

“Stop acting like you’re the only person in the world
,
” Drew hissed
. “Death is just as unfair as life, and lots of people die before they’re supposed to. M
y life was taken away unfairly as well.
You took yours for granted,
and I wanted
it back more than anything.” He stopped suddenly, as if he’d said too much, and for a second
it seemed as if emotion
that had long been buried
behind layers of wit and cocki
ness surfaced. Just a trick of the light, Sean tried in vain to explain it away. T
he moment passed
quickly though
and Drew turned away, limping the length of the room and plucking t
he door open. “I’ve wasted too much time here
. I need
to go before Hayden gets back,” he said.

“Where are you going
?”

“Shopping. I need to get a supply of blue contact len
ses, if I’m going to impersonate you.
”
He paused
, hesitating in the
doorway. “Are you going to come
or what?”

Sean debated his options. Strangely the previous near-murderous fury he had felt was diminishing, and he could think clear
ly again. What Drew had said
didn’t justify his actions, but it was true on some level.
He was an
ungrateful spoilt brat
now that he thought about it
, undeserving of the life he’d had.
“Okay,” he agreed
wearily. “I’ll come.”

He glanced at the window one more time, desperately searching for his reflection. An empty room was mirrored back at him.

The streets were barren. It was
to be
expected
, consideri
ng the hour. The shops would only just be opening. It was Monday
, so most people were
already at work or school
. It was an eerie feeling though, walking
(maybe ‘gliding’ would be a more appropriate word) down a
deserted street
at nine
in the morning,
not even being able to hear his own footsteps. Sean cracked a smirk at that. What an odd pair they must make. If he were not
invisible to
the world, people would think they were identical twins. Or clones.

The closest Opticians was
a twenty minute walk away, in the t
own high street. Sean couldn’t
understand why,
but s
trangely
he didn’t
feel quite so furious
anymore
.
Instead
the a
nger had mostly dissipated into
tiredness.
This brand of tiredness
felt more like
emptiness though
. Now that he thought about it, this kind of death was not very different from life
. And that just depressed him.
The journey was long and slow. It ended up taking nearly forty minutes and a lot of swearing on Drew’s part, to which Sean had only cracked an amused smirk now and again. His body (because it didn’t matter who was in control of it, it was still
his
body
) was
still damaged
and walking was
apparently
painful.

“Serves you right,” Sean muttered bitterly after yet another over-exaggerated pained groan.

“I’d like to see
you
put up with this, smartass.”

“
At least I’m not a wimp
with no pain threshold whatsoever.”

“Gimme a break!” Drew whined. “It’s been a while since I’ve felt physical
pain.
”

Sean’s taunting seemed to have worked, though, because after that Drew kept quiet and only grimaced instead. By the time they reached the Opticians, Sean co
uld see that the other boy was
exhausted and positively relieved they’d arrived. He scoffed inwardly and rolled his eyes.
What a drama queen.

“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” Sean
asked as
Drew began to check through the various aisles.

“Yes, of course, don’t patronise me,” he replied. It turned out that he didn’t, though, much to S
ean’s annoyance. In the end he
only managed to find the correct lenses with the help of
a pretty shop assistant who he tried to hit on afterwards
. Sean
used the opportunity to make as many hollow threats as he possibly could.

In the end Drew bought three p
airs
of
reusable
lenses, with money he’d stolen from Sean’s wallet. “This should keep me going for at
least a few weeks,” he explained
as they exited the shop, out into the bleak streets. The sun was rising slowly, casting a dull shade of blue into
the previously monotonous slate
sky.
There were a few more people out now, but on the whole the streets were still pretty empty.
It was peaceful, in a way.

“Whatever.
” Sean turned away from the backdrop of shops
.

The walk back was relatively quiet and neither boy felt like talking, e
ach lost in his
own thoughts, and consciously aware of the few pedestrians around.
The pavement, riddled with stepped-in chewing gum and the occasional smashed bottle, wound past little terraced houses, all with the same grimy windows and front doors with peeling paint.
There were cars in some of the driveways, and cars parked illegally on the double yellow lines, lined up as if they were just waiting for someone to come along and put a £40 fine in their windows. It was pretty stupid, Sean thought. A few slips of paper in a car window, or even a big yellow clamp on its wheel, would not deter people from parking on the yellow lines. 
Everywhere you we
n
t in
the world, people would be parking on those damned yellow lines.
He
could just imagine it now: a
French
policeman with a big moustache putting a ticket for who-knew-how-many Euros in some painter’s fancy Peugeot.

“It’s sad, don’t you think?” Sean murmured, barely noticing that he had voiced his thoughts out loud.

“What is?”

“That people don’t make much of an effort, these days.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying this, to
someone he barely knew and absolutely loathed no less
, but that plain exhaustion he felt refused to leave him.
It was bordering on dizziness in fact.

“You’re one to talk, Sean,” Drew muttered, face scrunched up
in concentration as he limped
. “You seem to have no motivation in li
fe – or death –
at all.”

“I know,” he agreed, and sighed desolately. “I know that. I’m just say
ing,
stuff looks different when you’re not actually part of it
.
I never really noticed how ru
n
down those houses looked before, or that people always park on the yellow lin
es.
”

Drew finally tore his focus away from his feet to give him a shrewd stare.  “
Are you being serious?”

“
Of course.”

“You do know that people have been doing that for centuries, right?”

Sean just shook his head sadly
again
. “I’m never going to get a chance to take my driving test, am I? Or
get a blue mini, or park on the yellow lines and get fined.”

“You never know,” Drew said, feigning sympathy. “Maybe you’ll get reincarnated as a taxi drive
r. Then you can park on as many
yellow lines as you want.”

“Hilarious. Maybe you’ll get reincarnated as a comedian, then you can crack
as many bad puns
as you want
.”