He couldn’t help his mum – he’d tried it before and it had made everything worse. Afterwards, when his dad had slammed out of the house, his mum had begged him never to intervene again on the basis that it just made him angrier. As Paul had sat hunched over on the kitchen floor surrounded by the shards of glass from the picture frame his father had thrown, his impotence had been as glaring as the purple bruising across his ribs, and he had reluctantly agreed. But now as he held his fist in one hand and flung himself on the bed, he wished to God he had never made such a promise.

*

Paul kept his eyes straight ahead, his only focus being to get to his classroom without incident.

‘Knobhead!’

The insult ricocheted down the school corridor arousing the other students’ curiosity. Paul hadn’t needed to look up to know it was directed at him and as Gavin gathered pace in his verbal outpouring, Paul was relieved to see his maths teacher, Mr Addington, barrel down the corridor towards the classroom, his arms full of exercise books. With one last step, Paul reached the sanctity of the classroom, Mr Addington a few steps behind him, closing the classroom door with a satisfying thud.

Immediately, the noise from the corridor was gone and Paul felt himself breathe. He sat down at his desk pulling out his books while discreetly trying to look for Claire. She was usually towards the back of the room with some of the girls and Paul pretended to drop his pencil, so he could look behind and check. When he saw her, she caught his eye, and she gave him her secret smile that she reserved just for him. Paul could barely contain his joy. He might be a knobhead but he was going out with the prettiest, smartest girl he had ever met.

*

‘So, what did he say?’ quizzed Paul, impatiently.

‘Nice to see you too, mate!’ joked Brian.

They were sat down in their usual spot in the woods, having biked over. Usually, they would be doing a few ramps and tricks, but Paul was eager to hear what Brian had to say. Brian had promised that he would ask his brother his advice on getting a girl to base three and hopefully base four. Paul had turned sixteen at the beginning of September and with Claire’s recent birthday, he was hoping they could both cement their relationship.

‘Come on, tell me!’ pleaded Paul, ignoring Brian’s sarcasm.

‘Whoa… easy,’ replied Brian, putting his hands up in mock protest.

‘Oh shit. You didn’t ask him, did you? What happened?’

‘I did, sort of,’ protested Brian. ‘Well, no not really.’

‘Why not?’

‘He was being a twat, that’s why. I tried to ask him but then he started taking the piss, and then he got me in a headlock, and then he went off out with his mates.’