‘And because everyone notices you, it makes you feel completely alone.’ I think back to all the times I walked into a room and brought silence with me. The eyes of everyone in a room flicking over me, checking where I was, checking that I was on my own. And I remember the eyes that stayed averted, made a show of ignoring me, or pretending not to notice.

‘Yes, you feel completely excluded. You understand this?’

‘After Dad died, when I came back to school, it was like everyone was looking at me, but no one would meet my eye. They’d see me coming down the corridor and deliberately not look at me, even if there was no one else around. I’d never felt so completely on my own.’ I sit down next to Ahmed, the orange glow of the town’s lights reflected in his eyes.

The thing that we carried here together, the weight I felt less than an hour ago; it’s gone. It’s gone completely and I feel lighter than I’ve felt for a long time, so I want to really mean the thing I say next. I’ve never meant anything so much in my life. ‘I’m sorry about how I was. That first time we met. And about everything—’

‘I can see why you…’ Ahmed cuts me off, but his eloquence quickly reaches the obstacle of my recent past.

‘Why I what? Has Jamie said anything?’

‘No. Jamie’s said nothing. Look, what I was doing earlier, on the computer. I’m part of a group, a network, OK?’ He laughs, ‘It’s not as CIA as it sounds, it’s mostly just talking about fantasy football leagues. But we also report on anti-Muslim behaviour, and we share our data with the police. Apparently, it gets shared with the government too, for policies and things. But I’m not sure about that. It’s mostly about keeping safe, letting others know what to look out for.’ Ahmed fiddles with his shoelaces as he talks. ‘I got a message a few weeks ago from a guy, and I was using the school computers to check up on something.’

‘What, like hacking?’

Ahmed smiles, ‘Well, maybe. Like I said, it’s not as James Bond as that, but there’s VPNs and proxy servers and I could go on at you about the number of backend issues this school has got. But you’d get bored, I think. Don’t worry, it won’t get traced back to me.’

‘Who will it get traced back to then?’

‘No one. Or… No, no one.’

I know Ahmed’s not telling the whole truth here, but I’ve never been good with technical stuff, so I let it go. ‘And …?’

‘And, this network I’m in, we all track those groups like the one Alan’s brother is running. Those deep, ugly hate groups? And…’