What the hell does she see in me? A girl like Sophia. She could take her pick. Every guy wants her. Why would she even let herself be seen with this? Is she playing with me? Am I some plastic substitute for Kenny for her to manipulate in a way that somehow avenges his fate? I see nothing in my pathetic reflection that offers any evidence to the contrary. She tells me she loves me like she loved him. How can she?

I break away from myself. ‘Shut up,’ I hiss back at that vacant, pallid face. ‘This isn’t just about you.’ I dismiss the vision of my own corpse, shake off the indulgence of inserting myself into a conspiracy theory. Still steadying myself with one hand on the sink, I creak the cold tap open and splash a few handfuls of tepid water over my face.

They call this room next to reception the sickbay, and it’s as plush as its name suggests. It’s like the world’s worst hotel room: green lino floor, a metal-frame bed, a low vinyl chair split at the seams, a clock so old the glass has gone yellow.

My soiled uniform skids into a heap by the bed as I kick it across the floor. Only the boxers I’m wearing have survived unscathed; the one unfaded, labelled pair I own. They’d been wedged in the corner of my drawer, earmarked for today’s use, for over a week. That wearing the right pants this evening was once among my most serious concerns now seems laughable.

I’ve been an idiot. I’ve imagined this day would be easy, tinted throughout by the light of the freedom that waits for me at the end of it. But, of course, it was never going to be easy. Like every day in this school, in this town, I have to fight just for my own space to exist.

I was a fool going to that assembly. How stupid to imagine that they’d just let me sit there with no greater payment than half an hour of my time. Of course I couldn’t. I had to be singled out, mocked, raised on to a plinth so I could disintegrate for their amusement. To be left standing in my underwear in a muggy room that reeks of bleach, wondering if I have it in me to just make it through the next few hours.

There’s so little left to do. Wait out lunch break. Sit through one lesson. Set a timer. Turn up for my piano lesson. Make an excuse and leave. There’s nothing else.

Like every day, I’ve let them kick me down, make me struggle to believe that I can finish even this simple task.

‘This is happening,’ I whisper at the mirror. I say it again and I almost believe it.