Page 23 of Playing for Keeps

I felt my way along the walls of the cabin until I reached the door, then hauled it open.

It was a cloudy night so no moon or stars pierced the all-encompassing blackness.

Dread pounded inside me.

I knew Ethan’s cabin was three along from mine. Crazy that I’d clocked that fact. Crazy how much he was still front and center on my radar, even after all these years.

I stumbled along the uneven ground, arms out in front of me so I didn’t accidentally slam into one of the huts and get a face full of wall.

Uncertainty welled as I located the railing of Ethan’s cabin.

Was I being stupid?

Maybe, in the last six years, Ethan had gotten over his fear of the dark. I’d look like an idiot.

But then a memory swept in. Ethan, at fourteen, trembling so much after a power cut in Wanaka that he couldn’t hold a glass of water.

If there was even a small chance his fear was still real, I had to find him.

I opened the cabin door. “Ethan?” I called softly. “You here?”

“I’m here.”

Only two words, yet I knew from how wrecked his voice was that he hadn’t slayed his fear.

“You alright?” Stupid question.

“Uh…not really,” he gasped.

I reached out, my hands hitting a wall. I worked my way along it in the direction of his voice.

“It’s just a power cut. The lights will be back on in a few minutes,” I said.

“I know.”

I followed the sound of his ragged breathing to the corner of the room. It was a sound familiar from our childhood, but I wished it wasn’t.

Ethan’s fear of the dark had started when he was eight.

It was after his dad had left, and his mother had needed to go into hospital. Which had meant Ethan had to be put into the emergency foster care system.

I’d fought with my mother about inviting him to stay with us, but she’d never been happy about my friendship with Ethan. She’d judged him for the house he lived in, for the clothes he wore, for his propensity for pulling practical jokes and getting into mischief at every opportunity.

He was in foster care for two weeks and during that time I watched my happy-go-lucky best friend turn into a nervy, anxious version of himself.

Ethan never told me what happened in that foster care house.

But one day we were biking home from school together and he insisted on doing a detour so we didn’t have to go past the house. And the next time he came to mine for a sleepover, he switched the bedside light on.

I didn’t ask him why, and when he fell asleep before me and I found the light was keeping me awake, I turned it off.

And then woke in the middle of the night to the sound of him freaking out.

Fumbling, I switched the light on to find Ethan huddled in a ball on my spare bed, gasping.

I flew across the room to his side. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

For a second I thought about bolting to get my parents, but his panic started to fade and he lifted his pale face to look at me.