‘I don’t have that one yet.’ Kieron glances at Connor, knowing that if his brother has it, he will lend him it.

‘I’ll treat you to your own copy. I’ve come into a bit of cash.’ Tyler taps his pockets.

‘Yesss,’ says Kieron. Tyler holds up his hand and Kieron high-fives it.

Kieron’s excitement is heart-warming. I glance across at Aidan expecting him to be sharing my smile, but the muscle in the side of his cheek is twitching.

He’s angry.

Tyler must feel eyes on him because he meets Aidan’s glare and something passes between them, thick and private.

‘Are you all right? Aidan?’ I pull his attention away from Tyler.

He shrugs. Tries to smile but then a look of utter despair passes over his face.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I need to tell you something.’ Before I can react, he is taking my hand, his palm is clammy. He leads me out into the corridor.

Whatever he has to say, he’s nervous.

I’m nervous.

He is gripping my fingers too tightly, and when I wiggle mine to loosen his grip, he lets me go. I want to snatch his hand again because I am frightened – I don’t know why – but he has moved away from me. He’s leaning against the wall and I scan his face anxiously trying to decipher what’s going on in his head but I can’t read him.

I’m holding my breath as he begins to speak.

‘Lucy…’ Again the anguished expression. ‘Please don’t judge me for this…’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Aidan

‘Please don’t judge me for this…’ Aidan stops speaking, his unfinished sentence hanging in the air.

‘Judge you for what?’ Lucy’s voice is measured and calm, but she looks at him with wariness and confusion.

‘I feel…’ He begins but the words tie themselves in knots on his tongue.

‘You seem…’ Lucy nudges. ‘In there, you seemed angry. You were glaring at poor Tyler.’ She gazes at him questioningly.

‘I’m just… Just…’

‘Angry.’ She says it simply.

‘Yes.’ There is so much fury coiled tightly inside of him. How can he explain to her that his lungs feel as though they’re wrapped in barbed wire, which cuts deep and sharp and painful each time he takes a breath. ‘Listening to Tyler laugh and joke, it’s… it’s… when I hear them in there like that, the three of them, okay not Connor so much but it…’ He places his palm across his heart. ‘I feel it here. This rage that builds and builds. The injustice. The senselessness. It seems so… unfair.’

‘That they’re healthy and living the life we want Kieron to. School. Friends.’

‘God, it sounds so awful doesn’t it, it’s not like I wish anything would happen to Tyler or Ryan but…’

‘It’s okay to hate them a bit.’