I tell her all about Ariel, escaping into a fantasy in which everything is straightforward. Yes, she goes to my school and she’s in the year above. I tell Mum where she lives. That she has an older sister who’s having a baby. That her mother died and her father left. Mum says all the right things and instructs me to invite her over for dinner as soon as I’m feeling better, and I disappear into my imaginary world in which things are this clear cut. By the time we pull up outside Beachview I’m positively glowing.

Mum sends me into the mall to wait while she parks the car. I wish I wasn’t compelled to go and buy a drink that I don’t ever want. I decide to try to talk to the angry man today, to mix it up a bit.

I buy a can of Cherry Coke. I turn and bump into him. He says, ‘Fuck’s sake!’

I say, ‘Sorry.’ He tuts and strides away, so I follow.

He’s maybe about thirty, with curly dark hair like pubes, and he looks furious. He’s wearing a blue shirt and the kind of trousers people wear to work, and there’s some kind of ID on him that I can’t read. I run a bit to catch up.

‘Sorry I walked into you,’ I say, and he throws me an angry look.

‘I should’ve expected it,’ he says, ‘coming to a place like this. No class.’

‘Fuck you,’ I say.

‘You want to watch what you’re saying.’

He stops. We stare at each other. This is a seriously unpleasant man. I hate the way his eyes bore into mine. I turn and walk away. Everything about this feels very bad. I don’t think he would kill me for walking into him, but someone’s about to do it and he seems to hate me the most.

My heart is still pounding as I sit and wait to die. Ariel hasn’t been to see me once since I told her to stop, and I regret everything so much. I told her not to see me any more because I love her. I pushed her away because I love her. Even though I know it was the right thing to do, I often wish I could go back and unsay all of it.

I work so hard to be calm, and that man has messed with it. I mustn’t fall into a spiral of despair because if I let that happen I’ll wake up in it tomorrow, and everything will go to shit.

I take a piece of paper and a pen from my schoolbag. I have to distract myself from whatever that was, in his eyes. He is most definitely the only person I’ve met on any of my todays who looks like he’d happily turn round and kill me.