YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Twelve

I stared breathlessly at the parade of images before me, cowering deeper under the tent of covers that I had propped up to protect myself. Somehow I had known that I would need a barrier from the world, that whatever my computer was about to show me would feel like arrows attacking me from all sides. As it turned out, my comforter was not enough to shield me.

The first image of Kieren on Instagram was one that his girlfriend, Stephanie, had tagged him in. So he was still with Stephanie, but this time, the pictures only went back about six months. In the most recent photo, dated just two weeks ago, she was standing next to him in a field, and he was wearing a camouflage Army uniform in desert beige. "So proud of my BF! Finished basic training today!" she had captioned it.

More pictures of them followed—date night at the movies; her "BFF's" birthday party at a bowling alley; just Kieren, taken from her perspective sitting opposite him, rowing a canoe up a beautiful sunlit river.

And then, working backwards in time, on his page: "First day of basic," hashtagged #GoROTC. In another of his photos, sitting at a large library table, books on chemical engineering splayed out in front of him. The caption: "They said college would be easy!"

I wasn't surprised, to be honest. His dad was a real jarhead, having served in the Marines after high school. He had never lost the close-cropped military haircut or stern demeanor which always terrified me when I was a kid. I actually had expected Kieren to follow in his dad's footsteps, football and pride in service being the two religions in the Protsky household.

The pieces of the puzzle began to come into place: the Reserves were paying for Kieren to go to the state college, about half an hour away. Before that, though, he had helped out for a few months at his dad's store, and that's where he had met Stephanie.

The only part I couldn't figure—the part that I was most afraid to find out—was why I wasn't in the picture.

I scrolled desperately through my text messages, looking for clues. Right after the night we came back to this new reality, there had been a spattering messages like, Meet me at my place, or Did you say 7:00 or 7:30? After that, very few texts passed between us for about five months, either because we weren't speaking, or because we were together and therefore didn't need to text.

Then about a year ago, the messages started up again: Miss you tonight, I had written. And two days later, from Kieren: Miss you too. Then a few days later, from me: Why aren't you answering? And Kieren's reply: Studying. Call U later.

A week of nothing followed.

Then a message from me, sent at one-thirty in the morning: Is this really what you want? No reply came.

The last exchange was from eight months ago. Kieren had written, Got your message. Don't know what to say.

I had written back: I'll always love you. No matter what.

That was the last message.

I closed the computer, shut down the phone, and pushed both devices out of my cocoon of covers, so that a pervading blackness took the place of all the artificial light they had been providing. And in that darkness, I balled myself up like a seashell and cried myself to sleep.

*

"Marina?"

I was still enveloped in my sheets, and the voice floated to me in muffled waves. A moment of panic gripped me as I suddenly came to consciousness and couldn't remember what day it was, or even what reality.