‘Nah. I… I rang and texted him this morning but…’ Ryan shrugs. ‘You don’t think it’s… you know. He feels he let everyone down. He’d volunteered to supervise and… he didn’t let us down. We let him down. Do you think he hates us?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Connor says firmly. ‘Your dad was cool. He told me if I ever needed to talk about it, he’d listen.’

‘Perhaps you should call him then,’ Ryan says with a hollow laugh. ‘He might pick up.’

‘Fuck it. Worth a try.’ Connor finds Fergus in his address book and presses dial. Ryan watches him, his face even paler than it had been a few seconds ago. The phone rings and rings before it goes to voicemail.

‘Not just me he’s ignoring then.’ Ryan’s voice is layered with both disappointment and relief. ‘Anyway, don’t say anything in front of Ty. Not yet.’

Tyler is heading towards them carrying bags of chips, grease already seeping through the white paper. Steam rising.

‘You legend.’ Ryan masks his vulnerability with a loud voice and a bright smile as he takes his lunch.

Connor plucks a chip from the bag, it burns his fingertips, his tongue.

Hailey would never have eaten chips, she was always on a diet, but she didn’t need to be. She was beautiful. Perfect in his eyes, but she’d scroll through Instagram, her hand fluttering self-consciously to cover her size fourteen tummy. It bothered her, he knew, that her best friend, Amber, was a lot smaller than her, but he honestly never noticed. He falls back into the memory of the first time he ever saw her.

It had been a year and a half ago. He had been slouched over his desk. Mrs Webb droning on about perspectives. He’d be so glad when he’d finished his GCSEs and could drop English. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good at it – he was – but he’d rather be focusing on his A-level choices of Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Further Maths.

Outside the classroom window, everything was grey. The playground. The wrought iron fence. The sky. There was a tap on the door. Hailey walked into the room and Connor remembers thinking that she had brought the sunshine. That she was the sunshine with a halo of blonde hair framing her pale face, her perfect skin sprinkled with freckles.

‘Ah, you must be Hailey! I’ve been expecting you. Hailey, this is everyone. Everyone, this is Hailey. Be nice.’ Mrs Webb gestured at a vacant desk in front of Connor’s. As she walked towards him, her green eyes met his and Connor felt an instant attraction. Before then he’d been curious about girls. He’d been on a couple of double dates with Ryan, watched porn with Tyler, but he’d never felt…

He’d never felt this.