It was now about 3 in the afternoon, his film was still paused on his laptop so he resumed watching it, curling up into a little ball and surrounding himself in a cocoon of soft, life-insulating duvet.

The sandwich had gone a bit stale, and the crisps were pretty soft from exposure to the air, but he still picked at them to try and keep his energy levels up.

At least he was able to focus on the movie a bit better this time. The obligatory romantic story arc was fairly paint-by-numbers but the comedic aspects of the plot were on point. As it reached its conclusion he checked his emails and messages once more; noting nothing from either Penny or Delon.

Feeling deflated, he dived into some videos online, but quickly lost interest and momentum. It was like his attention span was shot to bits, he just couldn’t concentrate on anything for long without either thoughts of Caitlin or Penny creeping into his head.

He rolled over and spent some time staring at the wall and thinking.

He hadn’t felt even the most basic bodily urge in what felt like forever. It had been over 24 hours since he’d passed anything, and since then, nothing. Similarly, since he had been… tormented… he’d been unable to get an erection at all, in fact, he’d not logged a single erotic thought.

Extreme stress has a powerful effect on the body, he already knew that, he just didn’t know how devastating it could be. Lying in bed all day had made his limbs feel less sore, but at the expense of their strength. His mind was also flitting around jaggedly as it tried to log the physical and emotional peaks and troughs.

He must have let the video playlist go through about 6 or 7 ‘Let’s Plays’ that he barely followed when he heard the front door unlock and his parents step inside.

They dropped their bags and his mum came in to check on him. Her dripping coat was covered in countless rivulets of water from the driving rain outside.

“You ok sweetie?” she asked, peeling her jumper-clad arms from the sodden sleeves.

“…still feel like crap,” he replied, grimly.

“Oh well,” she sighed, “I passed your love onto grandad anyway, he’s feeling a lot better.”

“That’s good,” Jack responded with a slight smile, he was genuinely pleased to hear his grandfather was on the mend.

His mother rested her cold hand on his head, the temperature difference from outside, and the fact that he had been cocooned for hours working in his favour.

“You’re definitely coming down with something, Jackie,” she said, pursing her lips with concern.

After his Mum checked on him he returned to his self-imposed malaise, listless and increasingly angry at himself for desperately hoping Penny would send a message.

Every few minutes he was refreshing the page just in case, to no effect.

The time slowly ticked by; 6, 6.30, 7… it was almost certain she wasn’t going to be sending him a message this late.

His mum brought in a plate of beans on toast for him shortly after 7.15 and suggested he take a bath, something he reluctantly agreed might help.

After eating maybe half of his food, he took himself to the bathroom wearily and ran himself a scalding hot tub, and had a good long soak in it.

Lying back, submerging his head under water, he let the warmth of the water pulse against his beaten face, holding his breath for a while and attempting to meditate, or at least vacate his mind of some of the worry.

His body was massaged by the hot water, soothing his aches and pains, ushering in some form of physical recovery, if not a small morsel of peace of mind.

Whilst drying himself afterwards though, waves of nausea began to rise up within him as the prospect of ‘tomorrow’ began to rear its ugly head.

He didn’t want to appear too ‘well’, though being worn out, mentally fatigued and nauseous would probably put paid to any short-lived afterglow he might experience post-bathing.

At about half eight, back in bed and in a clean t-shirt and jogging pants, he received a message from Delon:

Sunday 8:27 PM

Hey man,

How you holding up? I’m still good to pick up your bag tomorrow, plus I also managed to scrape thirty bucks together, would that cover a new pair of glasses?

D

Initially he skipped a beat when he saw the notification - not to be harsh on Delon, but it was not the one he had been craving all day.

He quickly replied:

Hey Delon,

I’m doing ok, still bed-bound, feel really rough. Parents seem to have bought into the illness thing, I don’t look well, so that helps.

30 would be perfect, obviously I’ll get the money back to you when I can. I reckon I can get the same cheapo pair I got last time, they were only 25 and they already have my prescription. You’re a friggin life-saver btw.

See you tomorrow after school, my mum doesn’t get back till 7 or so.

Jack

He pressed send, the nerves were still there, but the message had helped ease them a little. He just had to make sure he still looked completely out of it in the morning.

He had a funny feeling it wouldn’t be an issue.

Still, he was upset, Penny surely had a good reason for not being in touch, he appreciated that she might not have had time to get to a computer, of course.

It wasn’t fair on her.

Calm down, Jack, he told himself.

Stop thinking, for once, and go to sleep.

Eventually, after a long time, he did.

His eyes blinked open slowly. It was daytime, just.

He could see a dark clouded sky against the curtains, it looked positively bleak out there.

He felt… tangled up, he’d been fighting with his bedcovers again.

If he’d had a dream, or a nightmare, he couldn’t really remember it, which was a relief of sorts.

Swivelling his eyeballs to look at his laptop, still paused from last night, he spied that it was just before 8am. His dad would’ve already left for work, whilst his mum wouldn’t leave to catch the bus until around half eight.

He felt a lot better, truth be told, though he didn’t really know if he looked any less bedraggled. That deep-rooted sensation of nervousness was right there though; the ominous butterflies that told him things were not quite right.

Tip-toeing out of bed gingerly, he quietly opened his wardrobe and grabbed a couple of warm sweaters, taking them back to bed with him and cuddling up with them to provide extra warmth. He wrapped one of the sleeves across his forehead and pressed his head against his pillow underneath the covers, to try to generate a little extra glow.

He could feel the rasping heat from his breath in the claustrophobic pocket of air he had formed with his face pushed into the pillow. With any luck he’d have about 30 minutes before his Mum checked on him, enough time to cultivate a flushed appearance.

At around 8.25 or so, he heard a little knock on the door, and carefully slid the jumper of his sweater down under the covers where it wouldn’t be discovered.

He stayed silent, mindful that it was better to appear to be thoroughly out of it than even vaguely lucid.

His Mum turned the handle, opened the door slowly and came to his side, he feigned to stir a little in his ‘sleep’.

“Jack?” she said quietly, placing her hand very gently on his forehead. He’d cupped a little exhaled air into his hand for a while and wiped the condensation on his head to try and improvise a slightly sickly sheen, which he could subsequently feel against her fingers.

Without trying to wake him further, she silently got to her feet, removed the half-eaten plate of food from his bedside, and exited the room.

He lay there, listening out for the all-important sound of the front door being closed, the final confirmation that his deception had succeeded, and finally, after about ten minutes, he heard his mother leave.

He was still panicky, but his heart-rate slowed a little as the realisation began to dawn on him: he would not have to face school, and more specifically, Caitlin, today.

The relief was palpable, and he began to feel a new wave of energy overtake him, urging him to get out of bed, to test his legs, to return to normality.

It was as if a welcome stranger had returned home. Hope.

He grabbed the sweaters from his bed and threw them onto his chair, and slowly opened his door to make doubly sure his mother was not around. Walking around the house, he could verify that she had gone, and made himself a bowl of cereal to stem a rapidly-improving appetite. Stuck to the fridge door was a little post-it note in his mother’s handwriting:

Jackie

Soup and ready meal in fridge - just heat in microwave

Back at 6.30 rest up & get well soon

Mum

xxx

Crunching down spoonfuls of sweetened ‘o’s, his thoughts began to turn to what he could do with a much-needed day on his own. Obviously he needed to recuperate some more, but it was important that he plan for what would inevitably happen when he had to return to school.

Delon would not be around until later, so he probably did not have a big enough window to do anything much before his Mum came home, and there was a lot of time to kill until then anyway.

Looking outside, the weather was still overcast but brighter, like the sun was trying to burn its way through the cloud.

After he finished his bowl, he returned to his room and placed his laptop back at his desk, unsure as to whether he wanted to do something proactive, like play a video game, or write something, watch something. He drew a blank.

A familiar pang of regret hit him, Penny.

She hadn’t been in touch.

He ran his fingers through his hair, he didn’t want to be reminded about it, but it was on his mind again.

He wanted to maybe send her a message, to see why she hadn’t contacted him, and simply to ask if she was ok. It seemed innocuous enough, but he was worried he might come across as difficult, pushy, clingy.

No, she wouldn’t mind, I’m just asking, we’re friends, he rationalised.

But I don’t want to her make her feel uncomfortable or aggravated, either…

He stared at the friend request he had received from her last night on the screen. He didn’t click yes, or no, but instead on the profile picture itself, which loaded up an abridged version of her profile page.

Breathlessly, he clicked her profile picture, which expanded to fill the screen. It was a slightly out of focus shot of her somewhere outside from a low-ish angle, her long hair catching in the wind. Her expression was soft, neutral, caught a little off-guard by whoever held the camera. Her eyes still sparkled a little, even in a photograph.

He clicked to go through her other images but that was it, that one candid photo, and no others.

There was very little information of note on the page, just a few basics that he already knew, like her school, and a few shared and tagged ‘public’ posts to do with theatre events, acting classes and the like.

Clearly she didn’t give a lot away online, which was sensible, but in this case, a bit disappointing. He didn’t want to feel like a creepy stalker-type, but he had hoped to find something more, if only to learn more about her, perhaps just to verify that this person was indeed who he thought her to be.

And then an entirely different kind of wave rose up and hit him.

Caitlin.

Part of him didn’t want to type her name into the search bar. A large part, in fact, an overwhelming part wanted to forget it ever happened, but the crazy part, the morbid, curious, frightened… stupid part of him; that part wanted him to do it.

As he typed the letters in, he repeatedly reassured himself that she wouldn’t be able to see that he had viewed whatever stuff she had made public. He was almost certain that a girl like her, without making too bold a generalisation, would have a lot of unhidden stuff made public for her ‘followers’.

The words Caitlin Reid stared back at him atop the search bar on-screen, and he held his finger over the enter key.

After a moment’s hesitation, he pressed the key down with a decisive ‘click’.

The page loaded quickly, Caitlin’s powerful visage dominated the top left corner of the page, posing in some kind of glamour-shoot-style photograph.

He hadn’t imagined it, this girl was dangerously attractive, but the sight of her narcissistic smile made his stomach start to turn. So confident, so powerful, so cruel. It didn’t seem fair.

He decided against venturing into the about section for now, but instead began to scroll down the page. As predicted, there was precious little in the way of modesty; pictures from nights out, tagged statuses with popular friends, glamour shots, fitness stuff, social standing fused with sex appeal and physical prowess at every turn.

The fear gripped him like a vice, but insatiable curiosity held his index finger hostage to the incessant scrolling of the mouse wheel, further and further back he went. There was so much to take in - it was like a crash course in ‘Caitlin’.

It was almost like the more he saw, the more it steeled him, galvanising him further. There were so many photos of her pouting, curling her muscular arms or showing off her physique, wearing outfits that left little to the imagination. It got to him, but strangely, seeing her from a distance, on a little screen, made it feel a bit further away, almost like it wasn’t real - like looking at a celebrity in a magazine. A face he had only really seen terrifyingly up close was now staring back at him, not in anger or smug satisfaction, but the picture of youthful exuberance, all joyful and full of energy.

As he continued further, the time stamps between posts began to get further apart, and the photos began to show a younger, leaner girl. It was subtle, but the definition in her arms wasn’t as pronounced, the posing and leering at the camera less unabashed, the height gap between her and most of her peers less severe, but still noticeable.

The photos stopped about 7 or 8 years back, and it was clear that she wasn’t yet the confident, cocksure teenager she was to become. Her natural beauty was clearly evident, even as a much younger and far less developed Alpha girl, her trademark red hair tied up in a ponytail, and a slightly buck-toothed grin that had possibly necessitated dental correction at some indeterminable, and apparently undocumented, period.

He stared at the image of this alternative Caitlin, almost as if this version was from a different timeline entirely. She was by no means a spindly kid, several years of presumably high-grade GH-X2 treatment had already made her surprisingly stocky in appearance, a little pudgy apart from her face, but always a bit taller and bigger than the next nearest girl her age, more like she was a year older…

Except… wait. Wasn’t she secretly a year older? Of course.

He remembered the password he had entered into her tablet – the year before he was born. She was very likely to be at least a year older than him, and probably the other children in the photos.

She must have been held back very early on, or was never even entered into her appropriate year for whatever reason.

That might explain something. He didn’t know what, yet, but definitely something…