Despite not being reported or charged, the harassment would start that very evening and he’d woken up the next morning to the word rapist spray-painted on the garage door. His mother had been terrified, his father terrifying, but the abuse intensified over the months and eventually, his family had been driven out, forced to move to the other side of Manchester.

Still, the persecution persisted, the gossip having followed them like a stalker. In desperation, with their next move, they eventually changed their surname. Perhaps that would have been the end of it or at least something the Joneses could put behind them, but as the years rolled by, it was clear that a domino effect had been put in motion. His father lost his job, finding solace in the pub rather than at the job centre and there would be weeks when he and his mum wouldn’t see him. What little money his father had often went on drink so his mum got a job as a cashier in a local supermarket.

Paul was supposed to be in yet another new school, but the students were rough, the teachers disinterested, and the textbooks he had once loved became a hideous visual reminder of his past. Gradually, he stopped attending and despite his mother’s protests, he found work in the local pub.

Receiving his first wage was, if not life-changing, then certainly memorable for Paul. The little brown envelope bulged slightly from the wad of notes and the coins added a pleasing weight. It was then that he realised he could buy a little bit of happiness. He deserved it after everything he’d been through and as he discreetly exchanged his own little packet for a clear plastic one on the corner of Jamison and Ridge Streets, he felt slightly better at the thought of a little pill coursing through his body altering his shitty reality, even if it was only for a few hours.

He wasn’t a drug addict, he told himself because he didn’t do it every day, just on the odd Friday night when he needed a boost to get him through the weekend. Sometimes he bought more than he needed and sold it on to a neighbour or the odd punter in the pub where he worked to make a little extra money.