Sian had had trouble concentrating all day. She and her peers had noticed the inspectors milling around in the school, and they all knew that everyone had to pull together. The pressure had proven to be rather distracting; she hadn’t got into trouble, but several of her teachers had commented that she didn’t seem to have completed as much work as she usualy did.

Longmore had its share of disruptive kids, sure, but even the very worst-behaved students wouldn’t want to see their school close down after a poor inspection — though very few of them would actually admit that. Even Edward probably doesn’t want the school to close down, Sian thought to herself with a slight smile.

She’d found herself thinking about Edward quite a lot over the last few days. It wasn’t that she was developing romantic feelings for him — she’d never been in a proper relationship, and somehow felt that jumping into such an entanglement with someone as volatile as Edward probably wouldn’t be a good idea — but she did acknowledge that, in spite of everything, she cared about him and wanted to see him succeed, or at least not to fail.

She knew that Edward didn’t really have any friends. On the rare occasions when he was in school, he was always by himself; occasionally his peers would egg him on when he got into a rage, but this was more for their own amusement than offering him actual encouragement. In fact, more often than not such confrontations tended to end with Edward getting into trouble as his peers just laughed and jeered at him, and Sian always found herself pitying him when such incidents occurred.

She put up her hood against the chill wind that was blowing outside. She was waiting for Jasmine and Nicola, but had seen no sign of them as yet. Where could they be?

“Uh, Sian?” came a voice behind her. She instantly recognised it, and turned around to face the person who had addressed her.

“Edward,” she said with a smile. “How are you doing?”

“Not bad,” he said, a sullen expression on his face. “I nearly finished my music composition.”

“That’s great,” she said. “You got that done quickly.”

He looked a little embarrassed.

“I spent most of the day working on it,” he said. “Miss let me use the computer after I got kicked out of lessons in the morning. I got bollocked at lunchtime for wandering off, but I don’t really care.”

Sian smiled.

“Well, I’m glad you managed to get some work done,” she said. “I’ve nearly finished mine, too. I’ve been working on this one for ages, I’ll be glad to get it over and done with.”

Silence fell between them. Edward gazed at the floor. Sian wasn’t sure where to look.

“Uh,” he grunted after a moment. “Would you mind coming home with me again? I need to talk about some stuff.”

Sian raised her eyebrow quizzically, but didn’t object.

“Sure,” she said. “I was waiting for my friends, but they don’t seem to be coming. Are you ready to go now?”

“Yeah,” he said, and immediately started walking. Sian quickly caught up with him and walked alongside him.

“So what did you want to talk about?” she asked as they left the school gates and began walking up the road.

“It’s… sort of a bit weird and embarrassing,” he said. “But you’ve been nice to me, so I think I can talk to you about it. I need to talk to someone about it because it’s just been building up and building up inside my head and — augh! You know what happens when I get frustrated.”

Sian nodded grimly, but said nothing. The pair continued walking up the road in silence for a moment, the only sounds the crunching of their feet on the pavement and the distant sounds of their peers laughing and shouting.

“You mustn’t tell anyone about this,” he said eventually. “You mustn’t. Will you promise me?”

“Sure,” said Sian, though she already felt wary of what secret she was about to burden herself with.

“Okay,” he said. He took a deep breath, then began to speak.

“It’s my Dad,” he began. “Ever since my Mum left, he’s been a real mess. He doesn’t know how to deal with being by himself, and he doesn’t know how to deal with me or talk to me. He gets angry at me all the time and treats me like shit, and that’s what makes me angry. But because I get so angry, no-one believes me that it’s all because of him; they just think it’s me being an arsehole. And maybe I am. Everyone hates me, so I must be a complete dick, right?”

“No,” said Sian. “I don’t think you’re a dick. I wouldn’t be here right now if I did, would I?”

Edward contemplated this for a moment as the pair continued to walk up the road.

“No, I guess not,” he said. “Anyway, when he gets angry, he kind of takes it out on me a bit. He—” Edward paused here for a moment, apparently collecting himself. “He hurts me. He always makes sure never to leave a mark or do anything that people might notice, but sometimes he really hurts me. Some days I just can’t face coming into school, the pain’s so bad. I’m not just skiving — I mean, sometimes I am — but sometimes there’s just no way I can get out to school after he’s done a number on me.”

“I’d have thought you’d want to get out of the house if something like that happened,” said Sian, shocked at what she was hearing. “I’d want to run away.”

“I’ve got nowhere to go,” he said. “And besides, by the morning he’s either gone out to work, or he’s forgotten everything that happened the night before.”

“Forgotten?” said Sian. “How?”

“He drinks,” said Edward, looking at the ground as he walked. “He drinks a lot. He doesn’t know when to stop. He just comes home, chugs it back and then he gets angry and aggressive, and I can’t do anything. I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing I can do.”

“Haven’t you called the police or something?” Sian asked. “Surely they could help?”

“He’s my Dad,” said Edward. “He may treat me like shit but he’s all I’ve got. What kind of shit would I be if I dobbed in my own old man?”

Sian wasn’t sure what to say to that. It sounded like Edward was caught in a very difficult situation.

Presently, they arrived at Edward’s house. As before, no-one was at home, and Edward led Sian into the kitchen, pouring her a drink without asking.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I know I can’t keep doing this. I get so angry. I’m surprised I haven’t hurt anyone or got kicked out of school yet. I don’t know why they put up with me.”

“Edward,” said Sian. “It’s not your fault. Listen! It’s not your fault. Your Dad’s dealing badly with something in his own life, and that’s something he’s going to have to learn to deal with on his own — especially if he wants to keep you around. But you can’t keep just taking this. It’s not fair to you. I really think you should say something to someone.”

“They wouldn’t believe me,” he said.

“They have to listen,” said Sian. “You should really try it.”

“No!” said Edward forcefully, putting his glass down on the counter with a “bang”. Sian said nothing further.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “I just don’t know how to deal with this. He’s been behaving really weirdly lately, particularly in the last week or so. He’s up to something. I don’t know what, but he is. He even locked me in my room a couple of times, and I could hear something going on downstairs, but I couldn’t hear what. I don’t know what he was doing.”

“He locked you in your room?” said Sian. “That’s…” But she held her tongue. Edward had made it clear that he didn’t want to tell anyone — except her, apparently — and so she didn’t push the matter.

“He’s going to be home soon,” he said, looking at his watch — a battered, retro-looking digital affair. “You should get out of here before he comes back.”

“Okay,” said Sian. “And Edward, if I can do anything to help, just let me know.”

She took out a pen and tore a strip from a notebook she had in her bag. She wrote her phone number down on the scrap of paper and handed it to him.

“I don’t have a mobile,” he said. “But thanks.”

Sian blinked, and there was an awkward silence for a moment. She was the one to break it.

“I’d better go,” she said. “I hope things aren’t too bad tonight.”

“I hope not,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

Sian turned away from him and headed for the front door, smiling. That “see you tomorrow” was the most positive thing she’d ever heard him say.

*  *  *  *

When Sian eventually got home, she went straight up to her room to do her homework. It was mostly catch-up work today, and quite a bit of it due to the fact she had been distracted by the inspectors. Once she put on some music and got into a good groove with it, however, she found that most of it didn’t take long to complete at all.

Tossing her pen aside as she finished writing her answer to the last question, her thoughts turned back to her earlier conversation with Edward. Her stomach churned at the thought of his father abusing him, and in such a careful, calculated way as to hide the signs of abuse from prying eyes, too. The thought that people such as that existed in this world made her feel a little sick, and she noticed her hands were trembling at the thought.

She had to talk to someone about this. She knew she’d promised Edward she wouldn’t, but there was no way she could bottle this up inside.

She didn’t think Jasmine and Nicola would handle the situation with any degree of maturity, and she didn’t feel comfortable talking to her parents about it; she felt pretty sure they’d misunderstand the situation and assume she was in a relationship with Edward, which would lead to all sorts of what they thought were light-hearted mocking comments, but which Sian found intensely frustrating. It had happened before.

That left Kristina, really, and she didn’t know if she should share something like that with her teacher. Or her friend. What was she to Sian?

They’d agreed to be friends, with an implicit agreement that they’d help each other through tough times. Kristina had already opened up to Sian and shared her worried about her friend, so why shouldn’t she reciprocate? After all, Kristina was an adult, and might know what Sian should do, if anything.

Kristina, Sian typed, then stared at the screen for several minutes wondering what to say next. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need your help. She deleted the word “help” and replaced it with “advice”. Then she deleted the words “your advice” and replaced them with “to talk to you”.

I need to talk to you, she continued. Is it all right to share some stuff with you?

Vague enough, she thought. I don’t want to jump straight into it.

A few moments later, the response came through with a beep.

What’s up? it said.

Well… Sian paused before she continued, as if she was speaking the words aloud. I’ve been talking to Edward like I told you the other day, and he finally told me some… stuff.

She sent the message. She didn’t want to give away too much detail at once. She wanted to give Kristina the option to back out of this conversation if she wanted to.

What sort of stuff? came the response.

He’s having problems with his Dad, Sian wrote. Really bad problems, I think. It sounds like his Dad’s hurting him. I don’t know what to do or how to help him. Is there anything I can do?

Sian waited for the response. There was none for several minutes. Sian’s stomach was in knots.

I’m not sure, replied Kristina eventually. But we’ll figure something out, I promise.

Kristina was rudely awakened by some braying idiot bellowing nonsense into her ear.

She’d been meaning to retune her bedside radio for months now — ever since her favourite morning DJ had moved on to pastures new — but had somehow never gotten around to it. It was one of those things that, while very simple and straightforward to do in terms of effort required, she never quite felt the inclination or motivation to do.

Besides, if the last few weeks were anything to go by, it was rare she’d actually make it to her bed; she’d been sleeping on the sofa almost as much as she had slept in her own bed recently. The sofa was comfortable, and it allowed her to fall asleep to the quiet background noise of the TV, whereas the bedroom was often eerily quiet — an unwelcome atmosphere while she had so much anxiety racing around inside her head.

It was likely to get worse before it got better, too; after all, this was the week that the inspectors were due to come back. It felt like they had only just left, but Kristina knew that was what the Special Measures badge of shame meant; the inspectors would keep coming back, ostensibly to help the school get back on track, but she couldn’t help seeing them as “the enemy”, regardless of their supposedly good intentions.

She lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a little while, letting the irritating noise from the radio just wash over her. She wasn’t listening to the new DJ’s words; it was just a mumbling in the background that was having a faintly soporific effect on her.

Her eyes gradually started to close again. Just another few minutes, she thought. Just a…

*  *  *  *

Kristina’s eyes snapped open, and she sat up. The radio was no longer blaring, and she had a sudden, horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

She looked at the glaring red numbers on her bedside radio and it took her a moment to process them. As her brain gradually kicked into gear, she realised that she wasn’t late for work — yet — but it would be a close-run thing, and there would certainly be no time whatsoever to get coffee or anything on the way. She’d arrive, and she’d be thrown straight into work. At least 7C offered a relatively gentle introduction to the week.

Her thoughts turned to Maxine. After she’d called the police at the weekend, all she’d heard from her friend was a brief phone call thanking her, and telling her that she was going to go and stay with her mother for a few days. Since then, she hadn’t picked up her phone, hadn’t returned any of Kristina’s messages and, to all intents and purposes, appeared to have disappeared off the face of the planet.

She didn’t have time to worry about Maxine right now, though, as harsh as it seemed. She didn’t even really have time to sort her bird’s nest of hair out, nor to have a shower.

She clambered out of bed, her joints aching and making her feel about twenty years older than she actually was. She surveyed herself in the mirror on her dressing table and pouted; she looked a complete mess, but there was no time to do anything about it right now. She quickly ran a brush through her hair to get the worst of the tangles out and threw on some clothes that weren’t too wrinkled and didn’t appear to smell too bad.

*  *  *  *

As Kristina had suspected, the inspectors were back in school when she arrived. The team of them were in attendance at the staff briefing just before registration, glaring at the teaching staff with their all-seeing eyes. Kristina couldn’t stop stealing glances at them — so much so that she didn’t hear a word the Head said in the briefing.

The inspectors filed out of the staff room first, followed by the rest of the teaching staff. Kristina waited until most of them had departed before getting up from her chair.

“Are you all right?” said Martin. “You look really tired.”

Kristina was still feeling bitter towards Martin for his behaviour towards her the previous week, but he appeared to have forgotten all about it. She grit her teeth and tried to be mature.

“I am,” she said. “Sorry, just a rough weekend. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he said. “But let me know if I can do anything.”

That was more like the Martin she had come to know when she had first arrived at the school. Just recently, she felt like their relationship had soured somewhat, though now that she thought about it, that feeling coincided somewhat with her growing sense of anxiety and that she was somehow an “impostor” that would be found out at any minute.

She shook her head and stood up fully.

“Thanks,” she said, and walked out of the room, picking up a few papers from her pigeonhole on the way.

The papers immediately went onto her desk as soon as she got into her classroom, but then she caught herself and examined them closely. None of them appeared to be particularly important until they reached the last one, which was a memo from the special educational needs unit.

“Edward Jennings is having some difficulties at home,” it read. “We ask that all members of staff be especially understanding towards Edward at this time. Please report any inappropriate behaviour directly to us, and do not attempt to get into a confrontation with Edward as he has been known to become violent.”

Great, thought Kristina.

She crumpled up the pieces of paper and threw them straight in the bin, then sat down at her desk and rested her head on her hands. She sighed. She really did not want to be here today, but knew that she needed to do her part in order to try and help the school through its difficult time.

It’s not fair, she thought. I know it’s childish to think that, but I don’t care. I’m trying my best, but it’s not good enough. I feel like whatever I do, it turns to shit; how am I going to make it through this?

She exhaled a long breath, then stood up, walked to her classroom’s piano and sat down. She fumbled through the stacks of music laid atop the battered old instrument, and selected a book of popular song arrangements that she always enjoyed playing pieces from.

There were probably more productive ways that she could spend her time, but she didn’t care right now; she wanted to relieve some stress, and music was as good a way as any to do that.

She started playing one of the pieces — a cheesy ballad originally recorded by a girl group from one reality show or another. The song had always been something of a guilty pleasure for her, both to listen to and to play the piano arrangement of; it was predictable enough to be oddly comforting in a strange sort of way. The pleasingly obvious chord progressions felt like they were massaging her brain as they played, and when she reached the end she felt a little better.

So she played it again. And again. And then the bell went for the end of registration, and it was time to begin work.

*  *  *  *

7C arrived in their usual manner — chatty but friendly, and receptive to Kristina’s instructions. Just as she had got them quietened down as they lined up outside her room, a middle-aged woman whom Kristina recognised as one of the inspection team walked up to them, her low heels clacking on the floor as she approached.

“Miss Charles,” she said with a nod. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” said Kristina.

“I’ll be observing part of your lesson today,” she said. “Please, don’t mind me and continue as you always would.”

Fuck, thought Kristina. This is the last thing I need, though I guess there are worse classes than 7C to be observed on.

“All right,” she said, hoping her tone wasn’t too obviously acidic. “Would you like to go in and make yourself comfortable?”

“I’ll follow the class in, thank you,” said the inspector. “Please continue.”

“Miss, who’s that?” said Becky, a young-looking girl who stood at the head of the line and who was secretly one of Kristina’s favourite students.

“She’s come to see how you’re getting on with your work today,” Kristina said. “So make sure you work hard, please.”

Becky smiled. Kristina wanted to pat her on the head and ruffle her hair.

“All right,” said Kristina. “Let’s head in, please.”

*  *  *  *

The lesson proceeded without a hitch; Kristina took great care to tick all the inspector’s boxes by ensuring she had a starter activity to begin the lesson, keeping her “teaching time” down to a minimum and getting the children engaged in practical activities as soon as possible.

But then her door flew open, and she knew everything was about to go horribly, horribly wrong before it happened.

She also knew who had thrown her door open like that long before she looked over.

Sure enough, it was Edward, and the force with which he’d thrown open the door, banging it into the wall in the process, had caused all eyes in the classroom to turn to him.

He looked furious, aggressive and dangerous, and Kristina suddenly felt scared. But she also thought back to the music lesson where she had successfully got through to him the other day, and knew that she had to make a choice.

“Miss!” said Edward, not waiting to be invited in. He stormed into the centre of the room, fists clenched. “I’m coming in.”

Kristina blinked, then looked around the class. All of 7C had turned their gazes to her to see what she was going to do.

“Back to work,” she said, hoping she sounded more assertive than she felt. “Now, please!”

She turned to Edward. “What are you doing here?”

“I got fuckin’ sent out,” he said. “I got angry. I’m still angry. I could… argh!” He swiped aggressively at Kristina’s pencil case that was laying on the edge of her desk, and it fell to the floor, scattering pens and pencils everywhere.

“Edward,” she said, not wanting to provoke him. “Would you…”

She considered asking him to clear up the mess he had caused, but assumed that he probably wouldn’t respond all that well to orders or even requests right now, so she bit her tongue. Instead, she finished her sentence in a different way.

“Would you like to go on the computer and continue with your coursework?” she said. “So long as you’re quiet and don’t interrupt 7C’s work, you’re welcome to do that.”

She knew it was most irregular to allow a student to behave in such a manner, and that she’d probably be accused of “rewarding” Edward’s poor behaviour by allowing him something that he wanted to do, but she didn’t care right now; he was a disruptive influence in the classroom, and she either wanted him gone — which looked unlikely to happen — or at least out of the way — which was at least possible.

He nodded mutely, and walked over to the computer in the corner of the room without another word. He donned the pair of headphones that were perpetually attached to the system, fired up the composition software he’d been using to work on his piece the previous week and didn’t bother the class again.

Kristina looked over at the inspector, who had been sat in the corner of the classroom all this time. She was writing frantically in her notepad.

Sian enjoyed coming into town on a Sunday. There tended to be fewer people than on a Saturday, and the staff in the shops she liked to visit tended to be look considerably less harassed.

Today she had come out with the express purpose of looking at shoes. She didn’t have the money for new shoes, of course, but she thought it’d be nice to get some ideas. There would be parties around the end of term, and she knew from experience that everyone — male and female — would be judged by their peers on how well they dressed.

Sian was reasonably confident enough in her appearance, but not enough to feel like she could get away with not making an effort. She was always rather envious of Jasmine in this respect; even on days where her friend claimed she’d overslept and hadn’t had time to spend on her appearance, she still looked gorgeous, and as such it was unusual for a party to come and go without Jasmine having at the very least shared a kiss with some of the more desirable boys in the year.

Sian, meanwhile, was yet to give her first kiss to anyone — not that she really minded, of course, since there was no-one in particular she had her eye on. She often fought with herself internally about this; her own sense of maturity meant that she often felt like many of her peers were too immature for her, and she was in no rush to jump into bed with the first guy who paid her any notice.

That didn’t mean that she wasn’t interested in a relationship, of course; just that she wasn’t actively pursuing one right now.

As these thoughts flowed around her head, she realised she’d been staring at the same pair of shoes for a good few minutes now. She blinked, looked around — no-one seemed to be giving her any funny looks — and sauntered down the aisle to look at some other pairs.

Nothing was really grabbing her right now, so she decided to leave the shop. The high street was busy, but not unmanageably so. Time was marching on towards the end of the year, but the populace hadn’t quite switched into full-on Christmas panic-buying yet — that would probably start from next week, Sian thought, and continue throughout the rest of November right up until Christmas.

She sighed. She was struggling to muster up much enthusiasm today, despite leaving the house earlier with some enthusiasm. She was discovering that her relatively new-found freedom from incarceration at home by her parents wasn’t particularly exciting after all — though secretly she’d always suspected this — and was now wishing she’d stayed in her room, listened to some music or played some video games.

“Oi!” came a yell from further down the street. “Get back ‘ere!”

The source of the yelling was the middle-aged owner of the newsagent that bookended one end of the main shopping drag in the high street. Even as the rest of the street had gradually started to be taken up by nothing but clothes shops, leading to several half-hearted residents’ campaigns to “save our high street”, the newsagent’s had steadfastly refused to move. He was always doing good business, too, even with a larger WH Smiths further down the street.

Now it looked like he was having some trouble, though. Sian followed the sound and saw the owner standing outside his shop yelling, and a figure running down the road, knocking people out of the way as it went.

It looked strangely familiar. In fact, Sian knew exactly who it was without having to look too closely.

She started up the street in the direction of the running figure. She didn’t break into a run of her own, though; she figured that the shoplifter would probably tire himself out before long, and that’s when she’d find him.

Sure enough, it didn’t  take all that long; after glancing down several side streets after seeing him apparently vanish from the main road, she eventually found an exhausted-looking Edward leaning breathlessly against a wall, clutching a bundle of magazines to his chest.

“Hey,” she said. He jumped in fright and dropped his magazines on the floor; she was unsurprised to see that they were made up of a combination of men’s interest magazines with scantily-clad women on the front, and outright pornography, some of which were bagged and had a covermounted DVD. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone you’re here.”

He gave her a look that was somewhere between terror and anger, and said nothing. To Sian’s eye, he looked like a wild animal cornered by a predator, unsure whether to fight or run away.

She took a step closer and he visibly stiffened, pressing himself back against the wall as if willing himself to sink into it. She paused and looked at him.

“What’s up, Edward?” she asked, trying to use as calm a voice as possible. He still didn’t answer; his face was turning more and more wild by the second — now it was contorted into an outright snarl.

She took another step closer to him, and this time he moved; he bolted, leaving his stack of magazines on the floor. Charging down the side street, he knocked several dustbins over before disappearing around a corner at the end. Sian took off at a jog after him; she felt fairly confident that she’d catch up to him again before long.

She was right; Edward had barely got around the corner before having to stop to get his breath again.

“What do you want?” he yelled. “Leave me alone!”

“I just want to talk to you,” said Sian. “I’m not going to tell anyone where you are, I said that before.”

“Why do you want to talk to me?” he said breathlessly, a little less aggression in his voice now. “You saw what I did, didn’t you?”

“I did,” said Sian. “But I don’t care.”

Sian surprised herself by saying that, but after a moment of reflection she realised that she meant it. She detested the kids in her year — mostly boys, but there were a few girls, too — who wore criminality like a badge of honour, vandalising property and shoplifting in ever-increasing attempts to look cool. But she also knew that Edward wasn’t like that; because he’d alienated pretty much everyone around him, there was no-one for him to look cool in front of — except perhaps Sian, and she believed he was intelligent enough to know how she felt about that sort of thing — and thus he was obviously indulging in this behaviour for another reason. Perhaps stress relief?

“Huh?” he said, panting. His breathing was slowing a little now.

“I don’t care,” she said. “You did something wrong, but I don’t believe you wanted to actually hurt anyone. And if you were really that attached to those magazines you’d have taken them with you.”

He said nothing and just looked down at the cracked surface of the pavement on this side street; a far cry from the fresh, clean paving slabs of the high street.

“I hate myself,” he said after a moment’s pause. He didn’t look up, and kicked the ground lightly. “I don’t know why I do the things I do.”

Another pause.

“Well, I do. But I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

Sian said nothing. She wasn’t quite sure what to say to Edward right now. He sounded like he wanted to get some stuff off his chest, but also that he was embarrassed by it. Sian felt it would be better to let him say what he wanted — if anything — at his own pace.

“I want to take the stuff I nicked back,” he said after a long moment’s silence. “I’ll get in trouble but I don’t care. I want to do it.”

Sian was surprised at his proposed course of action, but didn’t argue. As he started walking back in the direction the pair of them had come, she followed along behind him.

“You don’t need to come,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah, well, I think I’m going to,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Whatever,” he replied, turning his eyes back to the front.

He led the pair of them back to the side street and picked up the pile of magazines that lay where they had fallen just moments ago.

“Shame,” he said, looking fondly at the cover of one of the pornographic magazines. “This one looked pretty hot. But I can’t afford to buy it.” He looked over at Sian.

“If you can’t afford it, I’m not buying it for you,” said Sian with a laugh. “You buy your own porn.”

She had to admit she was morbidly fascinated with the magazine and its covermounted DVD; she was familiar with the idea of porn and had even looked some up on the Internet out of curiosity once or twice when her parents were out — taking care to delete the browsing history afterwards, of course — but had never actually seen a pornographic magazine or DVD up close.

She caught herself staring and looked away, feeling her cheeks flushing slightly.

“You sure you don’t want it?” asked Edward, a mocking tone in his voice.

“No,” said Sian, firmly.

Edward gathered the magazines, clutched them to his chest and led the pair of them back out of the side street into the relatively bright daylight of the high street. They proceeded up the pavement towards the newsagent’s until they reached the doorway; Edward paused before going in.

“Do you want me to come with?” asked Sian.

“No,” said Edward. “Yes. No.”

Sian giggled.

“Come on, then,” she said. “I’m coming in.”

Edward walked into the shop with Sian in tow. She immediately saw the owner stiffen behind the counter as if preparing for another confrontation, but she was grateful that he didn’t seem to have called the police as yet. She got the feeling that this wasn’t the first shoplifting incident he’d suffered, and ultimately a few “specialist” magazines going missing probably weren’t going to cut into his profits too much.

Edward plopped the bundle of magazines onto the counter in front of the owner, who looked at them in surprise.

“Sorry,” Edward muttered, then looked at the floor.

“He wanted to return them,” Sian explained. “He really is sorry. He’s just… going through some things at the moment.”

“Hmm,” said the owner, looking Edward up and down. Edward, meanwhile, was still staring at the floor.

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes. Then the owner spoke again.

“All right,” he said. “I believe you. After all, you did bring them back. Just… please don’t do it again.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Edward muttered. He looked up at the owner, then over at Sian. “Things are worse than they’ve ever been. Or perhaps they’re better than they’ve ever been. I don’t quite know. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to think any more.”

Suddenly, without warning, he started to cry. Sian looked over at the newsagent, who looked slightly embarrassed, then back to Edward, who clearly didn’t care what a spectacle he was making of himself right now.

“Shhh,” said Sian, laying a tentative hand on his shoulder. He immediately flinched.

“Don’t touch me,” he said through huge, gulping sobs. “Don’t ever touch me.”

Then he ran, leaving a very bewildered Sian standing, confused, in the middle of the newsagent’s, with the owner and several customers looking curiously at the door Edward had just charged through.

Kristina was awoken by the sound of someone hammering on her door. Drowsily, she stumbled to her feet; it took her a moment to realise that she had fallen asleep on her couch, and that Maxine was still there snoring peacefully.

“I have a bloody doorbell,” she muttered to herself. “Why does no-one ever use it?”

This was a constant and irrational source of frustration for her. She’d spent good money on a doorbell — there wasn’t one there when she moved in — and apparently no-one ever noticed it.

She wasn’t quite sure what time it was; the TV was still on, and it was showing some sort of early morning cookery show. She couldn’t really tell what was going on as she was still half asleep, but the things they were cooking did not look at all appetising right now.

Staggering over to the front door, she peered through the peephole and saw an unfamiliar face. A delivery, perhaps? She hadn’t ordered anything recently, but perhaps it was one of her mother’s infrequent “care packages,” or perhaps a gift from a secret admirer.

She snorted derisively at the prospect. As if, she though.

She chained the door and opened it a crack.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hello,” said the unfamiliar face. He looked like a pleasant enough sort — perhaps a little older than Kristina. She put him somewhere around Martin’s age, which would put him in his mid-thirties. There was a youthfulness around his eyes, though, that made him look younger than he was. “Sorry to bother you. Are you Kristina?”

“Yes,” she said uneasily. How did this stranger know who she was?

“I’m Mark,” he said. “I’m really sorry to just drop in like this, but I was wondering if Maxine was with you?”

“Um,” said Kristina. She knew she had to think quickly.

So this was Mark. She still didn’t really know what to make of him, or indeed what had truly happened between him and Maxine. Maxine had assured her that everything was fine and that it had all been a big misunderstanding, but Kristina knew her friend well enough by now to know when she was putting on a brave face and lying to avoid talking about difficult things. And now seemed to be one of those times, so letting the source of her anxiety know she was here would probably be a bad idea.

“No,” she said finally. She knew only a fraction of a second had passed, but it felt like several minutes had gone by in the instant she’d been considering what to do. “Sorry. Are you looking for her?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We were supposed to have a date last night, but she stood me up. I just wanted to make sure she was all right, and you seemed like the right person to ask.”

“Okay,” said Kristina. Her skin was crawling, but she wasn’t sure why; speaking to him like this, he seemed like a perfectly reasonable, polite person, but at the back of her mind, she harboured thoughts that all was clearly not as it appeared. “Well, I’ll see if I can get hold of her and let her know you were after her. Looking for her,” she corrected herself.

“All right,” he said, seemingly trying to peer in through the crack in the door. “Again, sorry to bother you.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Take care now. Have a nice day.”

She closed the door on him, and she watched through the peephole as he walked away. He paused at the end of the path up to the front door, turned around and looked back at the door, looked as if he was about to come walking back up the path, then finally walked away.

Kristina quietly walked back into the living room, where Maxine was stirring.

“What was that?” said Maxine, sleepily. Kristina felt like telling the truth might not be a good idea here.

“Um, nothing,” she said. “Just a delivery.”

Maxine sat up and rubbed her eyes, then yawned.

“A delivery?” she asked. “But you’re not holding any package.”

“I…” Kristina looked down at her empty hands before realising the stupidity of her lie. “Um.”

“Kris?” said Maxine, suddenly perking up and looking worried. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, I, um,” she stammered.

“Kris,” said Maxine. “It’s fine. You can tell me if there’s something wrong.”

“It’s just…” Should she say anything? Should she— “It was Mark. He was looking for you.”

That answers that, she thought. Her mouth had a tendency to run ahead of her brain when she was nervous.

Maxine turned pale, but didn’t say anything.

“He said that you two had a date last night,” she continued. No sense stopping now. “And that you stood him up. And he came here to see if you were all right.”

Maxine frowned.

“Bastard,” she muttered under her breath, sighing.

“My turn now, Max,” said Kristina. “I want you to tell me what’s going on, because I know you haven’t been telling me the truth.”

Maxine closed her eyes and took a deep, unsteady breath; Kristina thought she heard a slight sob in there somewhere.

“All right,” said Maxine. “And I’m sorry for getting you wrapped up in this, but it looks like you are. He must have gone through my phone when I wasn’t looking or something and found your details. Asshole.”

“I thought  you said things were going all right?” said Kristina. But she could tell her friend was becoming more agitated.

“Well, they’re not,” said Maxine. “Mark may act all sweet and nice when he’s around other people or trying to get something he wants, but behind closed doors he’s… not a nice person.” Her tone was acidic. “He lives on power; on exerting it over other people, and proving to himself that he’s the best.”

“How do you mean?” asked Kristina.

“After… what I told you before, I told him I didn’t want to see him again, that I felt uncomfortable with what he did,” Maxine replied. “He threatened me. Said he was going to tell the bosses at work that I’d been harassing him. And he’s weaseled his way into so many people’s good graces that they’d believe him over me.”

“Why would he do that?” said Kristina. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Like I said,” Maxine continued, “he just loves to exert power over others. I don’t know why, because he’s not particularly successful or high up in the company; it just seems as if he’s compensating for something. But in all our conversations, I never figured out what; he’s been putting up one hell of a front in order to get what he wanted.”

“Max,” said Kristina, laying a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Has he hurt you?”

“He’s tried,” said Maxine. “Fortunately I’ve always managed to get out of the way before he could do anything. But he’s been forcing me to keep seeing him with these threats and everything. Last night, I just told myself “no more,” and ditched him. But it looks like he’s not going to take no for an answer.

“Well, he’s gone away for now,” said Kristina.

“He’ll be back,” said Maxine. “Oh, Kris, I’m sorry, I really hope he doesn’t start giving you grief, too. I feel terrible.”

“Don’t,” said Kristina seriously. “The guy clearly has problems. Is there anything you can do? Can you go to the police or whatever?”

“And say what?” said Maxine. “He hasn’t actually done anything to me, so what can I report him for? I don’t want to get in trouble for wasting their time. ‘Please, officer, this man’s been being a bit weird around me.'”

“Max!” said Kristina. “You just said he tried to hurt you.”

“But I have no proof of that,” she said. “Why would they ever believe me?”

“Because it’s their job to check it out if you report it?” said Kristina. “It can’t hurt to tell them, can it?”

“I don’t know,” said Maxine.

*  *  *  *

Later that day, well after Maxine had gone home — after the pair of them had made sure Mark was nowhere to be seen outside Kristina’s place — Kristina’s phone rang once again.

It was Maxine. Kristina immediately had a bad feeling. She tapped the screen to answer.

“Hello?” she said. But there was no response from Maxine; perhaps she had pocket-dialled her again?

She heard the sound of banging in the distance, and someone shouting. Was it Mark? Was he trying to get in to Maxine’s place?

Kristina continued to listen, and she heard Maxine’s voice shouting something back. The banging continued; more forcefully now. It didn’t sound like knocking any more.

Kristina was horrified by what she was hearing, but was at a loss for what to do; she couldn’t tell if she was misinterpreting the sounds she heard, or if Maxine really was in some kind of danger.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for her to find out; she heard the distinctive sound of the phone being picked up at the other end, then Maxine’s voice hissed down the phone at her.

“Kris, please, get help.”

The phone clattered down on some sort of surface, and Kristina could hear her footsteps going away. She wanted to continue listening — there was something morbidly fascinating about what was going on — but at the same time she knew that she had to do something, right now.

She hung up the call and, fingers trembling, dialled 999.

“Hello, emergency services, which service do you require?” came a calm, friendly voice on the other end of the line.

“Police, please,” said Kristina, her voice shaking.

As she waited to be connected, her mind started turning over all the possibilities of what might be happening at Maxine’s place right now. She was terrified for her friend, and she hoped beyond hope that the police would be able to get there in time to save her.

“Ugh,” said Kristina to the empty room. The stacks of paper on her desk had got slightly smaller, but they were still present. She was quite pleased with herself for having dealt with some of them, but feeling unmotivated to go any further than she had done. And yet she knew if she left them be, they’d just build up again until it was impossible to even walk past her desk without causing an avalanche.

She looked up at the clock. It had been well over an hour since the end of school, and all traces of noise had ceased outside the classroom — she couldn’t even hear the out-of tune warblings of what Martin laughably called his “jazz band” — actually nothing more than him on piano, one year 10 boy on trumpet, a year 8 girl on a tenor saxophone that was slightly too big for her, and a year 9 violinist who didn’t really like jazz music, but wanted something to do on Friday afternoons. They must have gone home; she didn’t know if Martin was still here and didn’t really feel like seeing him right now, anyway.

Gritting her teeth, she set about going through a few more of the papers. If I’m still here at five o’clock, she thought, I’m just going to leave it there. This is ridiculous.

More and more papers went in the bin. Another bundle of letters for her non-existent tutor group; a note from the Head reminding all staff that there would be a fire alarm three weeks ago; a mysterious form just labelled “Action Plan” with no indication of what actions she was supposed to be planning and to what end.

A bright yellow piece of paper was emblazoned with the word “IMPORTANT” in bold-print Comic Sans at the top of the page, with three exclamation marks either side of it. Having piqued Kristina’s interest, she was disappointed to note that the paper was requesting nothing more than volunteers to help at a school cake sale that had taken place well over a month ago. Into the bin it went.

Kristina was unsurprised to discover that the vast majority of pages she’d been hoarding were, in fact, completely useless and should have just gone straight in the bin the moment she got them. The trouble was, with how hectic a typical school day was, papers were usually dropped on her while she was right in the middle of something else, and just got tossed aside to be reviewed and dealt with later. This continued over and over until her desk was, like it was now, full to bursting.

“Oh, fuck this,” she said. She had gone through barely half of the stacks on her desk, but she couldn’t take any more. She held the binbag open and simply swept all the remaining papers off the desk and into the bag. Then she tied the bag up and threw it — now surprisingly heavy — to the side and sat down in her chair, admiring the wooden surface of her desk for the first time in what felt like forever.

Tiredness suddenly set in. She leaned her elbows on her now-clear desk and rested her head on her hands. She closed her eyes for a moment but quickly sat up again when she realised that she would actually fall asleep then and there if she wasn’t careful. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to stand up and get moving just yet.

She looked around her classroom with tired eyes. She honestly wasn’t sure what she thought any more. Some days, like today, she almost felt like a good teacher, particularly when she managed to get through to notoriously “difficult” students like Edward. Others, she felt like she was an imposter standing in front of the classes she taught; paranoid that she’d be found out any moment.

The prospect of the inspectors coming back didn’t help with this feeling — particularly when the last time around she’d been branded “unsatisfactory”. She already felt nervous any time someone watched her teach, whether they were her peers, a teaching assistant or someone from the local authority. But to know she was being graded on her performance made it all the more difficult to concentrate and be natural.

She sighed to herself. Why was she doing this? How had she fallen into this career?

She knew the answer; she’d come to the end of her undergraduate course and found herself at a loss for something productive to do with her degree, so had decided that staying on another year and attaining a qualification that was all but guaranteed to lead to a career was the right thing to do. It was a sound plan; what she hadn’t counted on was how tough life at the chalkface in modern schools was. Her own memories of school had been somewhat rose-tinted — or perhaps she just didn’t remember the bad parts — and so it was a bit of a shock for her to discover that teachers weren’t always treated with respect by students, and that a typical lesson involved as much time being spent on what was euphemistically referred to as “behaviour management” as on actually teaching.

She’d stuck it out, though. She was determined to make it work — the pay was reasonable, and it was a job that conferred a certain amount of respect from people her own age. It wasn’t until it was too late that she realised the respect she was getting was more due to the fact that everyone knew she was likely having to put up with abuse rather than because she was making a difference in young people’s lives.

She was snapped out of her reverie by her phone beeping in her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at it; it was a message from Sian.

Are you still at school? it read.

Yes, she typed back. Did you need something?

I’m not sure, came the response after a moment. Can I come and talk to you?

I was going to go home soon, typed back Kristina. Would you like to go and get a coffee or something?

Sure, typed Sian. I’ll meet you at school, I’m not far away.

*  *  *  *

“Hello,” said Sian cheerfully, though Kristina noted her greeting didn’t have quite the same energy it usually did.

“Hi,” said Kristina. “You okay?”

“Um,” said Sian. “I’m not sure. But let’s go somewhere before I tell you about it.”

“All right,” said Kristina.

The pair of them walked the short distance from the school to the local supermarket. Sian found a table while Kristina ordered the pair of them some lattes.

“So what’s up?” she said, sitting down. “Problems with your schoolwork?”

“No,” said Sian. “I, umm, I feel a bit silly saying this because it might be nothing, but I’m worried about Edward.”

“I think we all are, Sian,” said Kristina. “Is there something specific?”

“Yes,” said Sian. “I walked him home after music class today. He’s been opening up to me a bit recently, and I think he enjoyed class today. But, umm…”

Sian took a sip of her latte and then recounted the strange experience she’d had at Edward’s house — relaxing with a drink one minute; being ushered out of the back door the next; then the sounds of yelling and things breaking.

Kristina frowned at what Sian was telling her.

“Okay,” she said seriously. “Thanks, Sian. You did the right thing telling me. Obviously we don’t know exactly what was going on there, but it sounds like something worth at least looking into.”

And it might explain a lot, she thought to herself, but didn’t say it out loud.

“I wonder if we can help him,” said Sian. “He’s got a bad reputation, but I think underneath all that he wants to be a good person.”

“I’d certainly like to believe that,” said Kristina. “I’ll admit my first encounter with him made me think he was just another badly-behaved kid, but today opened my eyes a bit, I won’t lie.” She laughed. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you that, should I?”

“It’s okay,” said Sian with a giggle. “We all figure you teachers feel that way about us sometimes anyway.”

“It works the other way too,” said Kristina with a conspiratorial smile. “But I really should stop saying things now before I get my colleagues into trouble.”

*  *  *  *

“It’s… going well,” said Maxine, taking a sip of wine. It was the middle of the month, so neither she nor Kristina had a lot of spare money to go out with, so they’d just decided to meet up, drink some wine and watch some TV together. Kristina had tentatively asked her how things were going with Mark; she was still worried about her friend.

“Are you sure?” she said. “You sound a bit hesitant.”

“Yeah,” replied Maxine. “No. No, it’s nothing. I’m just tired.”

“You can stay here tonight if you want,” said Kristina, secretly hoping she’d agree. Her place had felt entirely too empty and lonely for the past few days, and she felt she would welcome the company.

“I might,” said Maxine. “It’s nice to just hang out and relax. It’s been a long week.”

“It really has,” said Kristina. “And I know next week is going to feel even longer in my case, but for now I’d just like to enjoy the weekend and not think about anything that’s stressing me the fuck out.”

Maxine put her hand on Kristina’s shoulder.

“You’re super-strong,” she said out of nowhere. “I really admire what you do, you know.”

“That’s the wine talking,” said Kristina, picking up the bottle and refilling her friend’s glass. “But thanks.”

“I mean it,” said Maxine. “You put up with a hell of a lot of shit, including from me, and you never complain. Well, sometimes you do. But you just deal with it. You never let it get to you. Well, you do. But you, oh shit, I’m pissed.”

“Yeah you are,” said Kristina. “And I think I need to catch up.”

She refilled her own glass with wine and took a big swig. The pair of them sat in silence for a while. Kristina stared at the television, but didn’t really pay attention to what was on it; it was some reality show that she hadn’t caught the premise for, involving the usual combination of stressed-looking people shouting at one another in obviously contrived situations.

She smiled bitterly to herself. Can’t even escape the stress in entertainment these days, she thought.

“Hey, Max?” she said, turning to her friend. “Are you sure you’re all right? I’ve been…”

But Maxine was already asleep, the wine glass still held in her hand, her head thrown back in a distinctly undignified manner.

Kristina smiled, removed the wine glass from her comatose friend’s hand, pulled her blanket around the pair of them and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. She closed her eyes and felt her own consciousness drifting away before long; the dreamless sleep of an exhausting day — no, an exhausting week — finally coming to a close.

“You look like hell,” said Maxine as Kristina walked in to the café where they normally met. “Everything all right?”

Kristina dumped her bags forcefully on the floor, then sat down with a “thump” and exhaled, but she said nothing.

“That bad, huh?” said Maxine. “Sorry.”

“The inspectors are coming back,” said Kristina. “So yay, I get to be branded ‘unsatisfactory’ all over again.”

“Coming back?” asked Maxine. “Didn’t they just leave?”

“That’s what Special Measures means,” explained Kristina, leaning her elbows on the table and resting her head on her hands. “They keep coming back until we’re… not unsatisfactory, or whatever.”

“That sucks,” said Maxine. “And seems counter-productive.”

“Well, I sort of get it,” said Kristina. “I mean, being in Special Measures basically says that we fucked up and we need to shape up or shut down. And them coming back is a way of checking that we’re, you know, shaping up. But, ugh, everyone’s really stressed about it again, particularly as they come at such short notice.”

“Sorry,” said Maxine, laying a hand on Kristina’s arm. “Wish I could help more.”

“Just listen to me rant every so often,” said Kristina. “That’ll do me.”

One of the baristas came over and brought two large lattes.

“I ordered for you,” said Maxine with a smile. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Kristina chuckled weakly. “No, not at all,” she said. “I feel like I need this.” She picked up the heavy glass and took a sip of the coffee, giving an exaggerated gasp after she swallowed. “So what’s new with you? Are you feeling better after… the other day?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Maxine cheerfully. “It was all a misunderstanding. We talked about it at work and sorted it out. It’s all fine.”

Kristina raised an eyebrow. This wasn’t quite what she expected to hear.

“Really? Are you… sure?”

“Yeah,” said Maxine. “I was just overreacting. It’s all good. We’re seeing each other again later tonight, actually.”

Kristina frowned, but didn’t say anything. She took another sip of her coffee.

Something felt off about all this. Maxine had been so upset the other day, and now everything was fine? She didn’t say anything, though; she felt she was in no position to give her thoughts on her friend’s love life, what with her own lack of experience in that department. Sometimes she was grateful for that lack of experience; at others, she wished she had more experience to draw on to be able to give advice. Now was one of the latter times.

“What are you going to do this time?” she said. She instantly regretted adding the “this time”, but Maxine didn’t seem to notice — or care.

“He’s going to cook me a meal,” Maxine said. “He’s quite a chef, apparently.”

Was that a hint of uneasiness in her voice? Kristina couldn’t quite tell, but she didn’t feel happy about this.

“You’re going to his house?” she said. She couldn’t stop herself. There was a slight pause — not a long one, but noticeable.

“Yes,” said Maxine.

*  *  *  *

Kristina had brought some of the paperwork home with her to try and sort. Not all of it, but she reckoned she had about half of it. After finishing her dinner — a microwave curry tonight; not at all bad — she heaved the box of papers onto her dining table and started drawing them out one by one, a binbag by her side ready to discard useless or irrelevant items into.

First was a copy of the school newsletter; she never read these, as they were largely aimed at parents. Into the binbag it went. Then came a stack of letters home to parents explaining the results of the inspection and what “Special Measures” meant. Since Kristina didn’t have a tutor group, she wasn’t sure why she’d been provided with a stack of these; into the binbag they went.

Beneath that was a form from the school’s special educational needs unit asking for feedback on Edward. She was apparently supposed to track his behaviour in the lessons he attended, then submit the report to the SEN department so they knew how he was getting on — whether he was successfully integrating into the school or whether he was going to be even more of a problem than he had been in the past. She put that to one side; although she had neglected to fill it in earlier, she made a mental note to focus on that and remember it for the future.

Then there was a pile of worksheets from Martin — she’d made her own for the lesson they covered, so into the binbag they went, although she kept one just in case she wanted to use it in future — and a note from the Head reminding everyone that was a Governors’ meeting two weeks ago; binbag.

Her phone rang at this point; she fumbled around in her dressing gown robe pocket for it and clumsily dropped it face-down on the table in her rush to answer it. She picked it up and saw that it was Maxine calling her; wasn’t she supposed to be on her date with Mark? She slid her finger across the screen and answered.

“Hello?” she said uneasily. There was no response from the other end, but she could hear something; she wasn’t sure what. Had Maxine pocket-dialled her?

There was a rustling sound, and mumbling in the background, though she couldn’t hear what was being said. There were two voices — she assumed they were Maxine and Mark. They sounded like they were talking normally.

“Maxine?” Kristina said, a little louder than she would normally speak. “Maxine, are you there? I think you pocket-dialled me. Hello?”

No response. The voices in the background sounded a little louder. She couldn’t tell if they were closer or actually louder. Then there was more rustling. What was going on? Kristina was morbidly curious, although she knew that she was intruding on what was probably quite a private moment right now.

Mark said something, and Maxine responded in what Kristina recognised as her “girl power” tone; an assertive voice that made it clear she was in charge. But it sounded like Mark was persisting. Kristina still couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded as if they were disagreeing on something. She considered speaking up again, but against her better judgement she didn’t want either of them noticing her “presence” and hanging up just yet.

She could feel a knot in her stomach forming; she had a feeling something bad was going to happen. And yet she didn’t hang up, nor did she do anything about it; she just listened.

Mark sounded like he was raising his voice now, and Maxine’s voice sounded less assertive. There was a loud “thump,” and what sounded like a yelp from Maxine. What was going on? She had a feeling she already knew, but she didn’t want to admit it to herself; she also felt guilty at the fact she was listening in and wasn’t able to do anything to help her friend.

“Maxine!” she cried as loud as she could. There was the rustling sound again, louder this time, and then the line went dead with the usual “beep, beep beep.”

“Shit,” said Kristina, the knot in her stomach tightening by the moment. She tried to call her back, but it simply went straight to voicemail; one or the other of them — she had a feeling she knew who — had turned her phone off.

What should she do? She could feel herself starting to panic. Should she call the police? But what should she tell them? She didn’t know where Mark lived and thus didn’t know where Maxine was, and with her phone off, they wouldn’t be able to track where she was — and anyway, she wasn’t sure if they could even do that. She didn’t know Mark’s full name or any other details; there was nothing she could do.

Flailing around, she knocked the box of papers off the table. They scattered onto the floor, and some went under the sofa, but she didn’t care right now; she was now utterly convinced that her friend was in trouble and didn’t know what to do. Actually, she did: nothing. There was nothing she could do, and the feeling of helplessness was making her panic even more.

She flipped to the messages app on her phone, and chose the conversation thread with Sian.

Sian, she typed. I need help. I really need help. What do I do? 

She just sat and stared at her phone for several minutes. Eventually, a response came back.

What’s wrong? came the reply. Simple but to the point.

Kristina took a deep breath, closed her eyes, exhaled sharply, then started to type.

You remember my friend that I told you about? she wrote. Well, after what happened with the guy she went on a date with the other day, she’s back seeing him again tonight. At his house. And I’m worried that he’s doing something bad to her. I don’t know what, but she pocket-dialled me and it sounded like something was going on. Am I overreacting? I think I’m overreacting. Sorry, you don’t need to hear all this.

Kristina could see that Sian started typing immediately after her message arrived.

It’s okay. It’s all right, said the message. Sian started typing again immediately afterwards.

You’re not overreacting, came a second message shortly afterwards. Your friend would probably be glad to know you’re worried about her.

But I don’t know how to help her, Kristina typed back. If he’s doing something, what can I do?

There was a long pause. Kristina’s house suddenly felt like time had stopped, and all sound had simply ceased. She knew that she was putting a lot of pressure on Sian here — pressure that she really didn’t deserve — but she also felt terrified of being alone right now. And, in acknowledging that, she felt guilty for putting her own concerns above those of Maxine.

But Maxine might be fine, she told herself. She said it was all a misunderstanding, that they’d cleared it all up.

The sound of the muffled, mumbling voices becoming increasingly agitated and louder echoed in her head.

“Oh, God,” she said to herself, putting her head in her hands. She felt like she was about to cry.

I’m sorry, said Sian. I really don’t know what to suggest. It doesn’t sound like there’s much you can do. I know that’s not what you probably want to hear, but it’s the truth. If you’re worried, you should keep trying to contact her, and make sure you see how she is tomorrow.

Kristina felt a tear rolling down her face. How had this young girl gotten to be so wise at her age? How is it a sixteen-year-old was able to keep her cool, while she — a grown woman and a qualified teacher — was falling apart like this?

The most frustrating thing is that she knew Sian was right. She knew that she was talking sense, that she was simply confirming everything she had already thought. But that didn’t make it any easier. It wouldn’t make it any easier to sleep tonight; in fact, Kristina felt that there was a distinct possibility she wouldn’t be sleeping at all tonight.

I’m sorry about all this, Sian, she typed back to her young friend. I’ll leave you alone now. I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. Thank you for listening, though.

You’re welcome, came a response a moment later. Please take care of yourself.

Sian put her phone down and contemplated what was going on. She didn’t quite know what to make of the whole situation still. She was happy that Kristina was reaching out to her as a friend, but what they were doing still felt somehow… wrong. At the same time, it was a little exciting, but she tried not to focus too hard on that side of things; steering clear of things that were exciting but perhaps morally dubious had kept her out of trouble thus far.

Kristina was worried about her friend, it seemed, but she hadn’t elaborated on the details. It sounded like it might be something serious, but Sian couldn’t even begin to imagine what the problem might be. She wondered if it was one of the things contributing to Kristina’s seeming emotional fragility at the moment, but didn’t like to guess. She knew all too well that guesses often escalated into outright anxiety, and that never got anyone anywhere.

She picked up her phone again — no more messages yet — and put it into her pocket. She left her room and trotted downstairs to go and make herself a drink; she felt like she hadn’t drunk anything all evening, and her throat was parched.

Her mother was downstairs watching television.

“Are you all right?” she asked as Sian darted past, trying to avoid being noticed.

“Yes,” said Sian.

“What are you doing?” her mother called from the other room.

“Just getting a drink,” Sian called back.

“Use the juice that’s in the door, please,” said her mother. “It needs using up.”

Sian obliged, and filled a tall glass with the orange juice, giving it a sniff before she took a sip just to make sure. It smelled fine, and there was only a tiny drop left in the carton now she’d filled her glass; checking to see no-one else was around — her mother hated it when people drank straight from the bottle or carton — she swigged the last of it, then tossed it in the bin. Then she headed back for her room.

“Do you want anything else?” called her mother as she passed.

“No, Mum, I’m fine,” said Sian, a little more bluntly than she intended. Her mother didn’t respond. She paused on the stairs for a moment, then continued her way back up to her room.

As she crossed the threshold of her room, with perfect timing her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was Kristina.

Well, said the message, sent in response to a query Sian had sent earlier. She wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened. But it sounded like she had a date that went badly. Her date tried to hurt her. It’s so weird, because she always said the two of them had gotten along so well.

Hurt her? probed Sian. What, did he hit her or something? She instantly knew that wasn’t what Kristina had meant, and regretted asking such a silly question.

No, came the reply. I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this sort of thing, but hell, I probably shouldn’t be talking to you at all. He tried to… you know. When she didn’t want to.

Sian looked at the screen in horror. The idea of someone being subjected to a crime like that was difficult for her to process; she and her family had always lived in reasonably well-off areas in which the most unpleasant things that happened involved having more than one door-to-door salesman in a day, and so she’d always considered most crimes to be vague, amorphous concepts that never really actually happened. Although she didn’t know Kristina’s friend, she felt somehow attached to her; and the prospect of her being assaulted in such a way was utterly horrifying and frightening.

OMG, wrote Sian. I’m so sorry to hear that. She didn’t really know what else to say, so she sent the message as is.

I’m so sorry, came the reply from Kristina a moment later. It was completely inappropriate for me to share that with you. Let’s talk about something else.

It’s okay, said Sian. It was just a shock.

*  *  *  *

It was lunchtime, and both Jasmine and Nicola had been given detention for talking too much in their science lesson earlier in the day, so Sian was at a loose end. She had other friends, of course, but tended to default to hanging out with Jasmine and Nicola, since they were her closest friends.

She often wondered why, as their characters were so very different to hers, but she certainly didn’t begrudge them their friendship. She was grateful for it, in fact; she often felt strangely detached from the rest of her peers, so to have a reliable pair of friends who didn’t seem to mind her being around too much was something she welcomed very much.

She wandered out of the doors and into the school grounds. It was chilly outside, and the wind was blowing, making it feel even colder. She buttoned up her coat and pulled up her hood, then started walking. She didn’t have a particular destination in mind; she just wanted to walk. The air, while cold and uncomfortable, was invigorating, and she was enjoying the sensation of just the front of her face being buffeted by the breeze while the rest of her head remained toasty warm.

Most of her peers had elected to stay inside due to the weather, so it was fairly quiet outside, though she could hear the crowd of boys who always played football every lunchtime whatever the weather doing their thing off in the distance. They always sounded like they were enjoying themselves; shouting and screaming like children much younger than they really were. Sian envied them a little; she had forgotten what it was like to be a “child”.

As she rounded the corner of the school and came up on the school’s bike sheds, she noticed a lone figure perched on the wall, staring at its shoes. As she got a little closer, she recognised it as Edward, sitting out in the cold without a jacket. She hesitated for a moment and just watched him, but he didn’t seem to be going anywhere; the only sign of life was when he occasionally kicked his feet at the floor, but he didn’t look up.

Sian felt suddenly curious, though at the same time a little afraid. Despite her misgivings, she approached Edward and sat down next to him. She removed her hood and looked at him. He didn’t look up.

“Hey, Edward,” she said in a soft voice. “Are you all right?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t look all right.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

“No,” he muttered.

There was an awkward silence between the two of them for a moment.

“What are you doing?” asked Sian.

“Just thinking,” he said.

“What about?” asked Sian.

There was another pause, and finally he lifted his head and turned to face her.

“What do you care?” he asked.

“I’m just curious,” said Sian. “You looked… I don’t know, a bit sad.”

“I’m not sad,” he said, aggressively. “I’m just thinking.”

“Okay,” said Sian, recognising that she probably shouldn’t continue down this line of enquiry.

Silence fell again. A cheer echoed across the school grounds; one of the footballers had evidently just scored.

“Everyone hates me,” said Edward after a moment, unprompted.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” she said.

“Everyone hates me,” he repeated. “And I don’t blame them. I hate me, too.”

“Edward,” said Sian, trailing off. She wasn’t quite sure what to say next.

“I can’t help myself,” he continued. “I just… can’t control it. And it ruins things. I fucked everything up with that music teacher.”

“Miss Charles?” asked Sian. “What happened?”

Edward sighed.

“She was being nice to me,” he said. “She was helping me, and then I just… I got so angry. I got so mad. I scared her. I feel like shit.”

Things started to click into place for Sian.

“If you feel bad, you should say you’re sorry,” said Sian. “I’m sure she’d like that.”

“No,” said Edward. “She won’t want to come anywhere near me now. I fucked it up.” He sounded like he was starting to get a little angry and frustrated; Sian felt she should tread carefully, and perhaps change the subject.

“Do you know what makes you feel upset?” asked Sian tentatively.

“I don’t feel upset,” he said through gritted teeth. “I feel angry.”

“Okay,” said Sian. “What makes you feel angry?”

“I don’t know,” said Edward. “It just… happens. Things pop into my mind, and they just make me… explode.”

“What sort of things?” asked Sian.

“I… don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “You’ll laugh.”

“No,” said Sian. “I won’t.”

“No!” he said. “I’m not talking about this!”

He stood up, and for a moment Sian felt a flash of fear. But he wasn’t lunging for her or attacking her; he was just standing up.

He started to walk away in the direction of the school’s back gate. Sian had a feeling he wouldn’t be coming back for afternoon classes.

After a few steps, he paused, turned and looked over his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said. “And thanks. People don’t normally talk to me.”

Before Sian could respond, he was walking away at a brisk pace. She just stared after him.

In the distance, the footballers roared again. Another goal.