‘Wasn’t where we came from, maybe. It is for most of this lot. You should’ve seen the faces on the Colm’s guys when they heard Finn Carroll was out. They looked like he was gone gone, like they’d never see him again; they were practically as upset about him as they were about Chris. You know what they think? Schools like this are the whole civilised world. Outside, it’s wilderness. Teenage mutant skanger smackheads selling your kidneys on the black market.’

I could see it. Didn’t say it to Conway, but I could see so clearly. Thrown out of here would feel like thrown over a wall into blackened rubble and air made of grime. Everything gone; everything golden and lit, everything silken, everything carved in delicate curlicues to welcome your fingertips, everything made to chime in sweet spacious harmonies: gone, and a flaming sword to bar your way back forever.

Conway leaning back against the wall and watching me at a slant, through those streaks of warrior hair. One dark eye, hooded.

I said, ‘Let’s see the rest.’

The texts between Chris and Selena started on the 25th of February, and they were different. No flirting, no sexy talk, no wheedling for pics; none of that feel, speed and fever.

Hi

Hi

That was it, their first conversation. Just feeling the other one there.

Over the next couple of days they started telling each other stories. Chris’s class had made some gadget that beeped at random intervals, stuck it under a desk and watched their Irish teacher lose his mind. Selena’s class had been messing with Houlihan’s head by inching their desks forward, too gradually to spot, till she was practically pinned against the blackboard. Small stories, to make each other laugh.

Then – carefully, step by step, like they had all the time in the world – they moved into personal stuff.

Chris: OK so this wknd I get home n my sister’s cut her hair in one of those emo fringes. What do I do??

Selena: Depends, does it look good?

Chris: Actually not bad . . . or wouldn’t be bad if she’d got it done at the hairdresser instead of doing it herself with nail scisors :-0

Selena: LOL! Then take her to the hairdresser + get it done right!

Chris: I might actually do it :-D

Late-night texts, typoed, hurrying in the jacks or texting blind under covers. Chris’s sister loved her pro haircut. He and his friends got locked at someone’s brother’s party, shouted insults at some girl on their way home, Chris felt guilty about it in the morning (Sooo complex, Conway’s eye-roll said, such a sensitive soul). Selena wished her dad and her mum would talk when one of them dropped her off at the other’s place; Chris wished his parents would stop talking, because they always ended up yelling. They were getting close.