‘I’ll be with you in a minute. I don’t feel so good.’

‘You don’t look so good, either,’ Tom said as he went into the lounge, dumping his laptop bag on the ground.

‘There’s food in the kitchen if you want,’ Adrian said as he hurried up the stairs into the bathroom.

He slammed the door and gulped for air. He leaned over the basin, ready to throw up again, saliva pooling in his mouth. Was he going to feel this way every time he saw Tom? He didn’t even want to look him in the eye.

He had to compose himself; he couldn’t let this beat him. He could do it – he could make himself better. He refused to be a slave to this. He wiped his leaking eyes again. Was this ever going to end?

He went back downstairs to find Tom scoffing a sausage roll. Adrian went and put his arms around his son. His rib smarted but he didn’t care.

‘I called your colleague, Imogen, and asked if I could come over; your phone was off. I didn’t know how else to get in touch with you,’ Tom explained. ‘We’ve got the afternoon off because of some kind of problem in the sixth form centre. She said you would be happy to see me.’

‘I am. It’s good to see you. I didn’t think we were seeing each other until next weekend,’ Adrian said.

Tears hovered on edge of his lids again. He turned away and started to make a coffee before it began. Losing it in front of Tom was the last thing he needed. He had to be stronger now than he had been so far. He couldn’t let Tom know he was hurting, for his son’s sake.

‘What happened to you, anyway?’

‘Just a work thing, nothing major.’

‘Can I see your rib?’

‘It’s faded a lot,’ Adrian said, realising Imogen must have explained his injuries to Tom.

Adrian lifted his shirt and showed Tom the bruise – you could see his ribs outlined in a smoky grey and a cranberry cloud like bruising around the whole area. There were some green-and-yellow marks; it looked like a nebula. Beautiful in its own way.

‘Wow! that must have really hurt.’

‘Still does. A couple more weeks until I’m better.’

‘Do you want to watch a movie or something?’ Tom said.

Adrian could see that Tom was worried about him and it broke his heart. Even in Tom’s sixth form attire of a dark grey business suit with a shirt and tie, he barely looked his seventeen years. Adrian couldn’t believe that he was going to be eighteen in a couple of months.

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘I don’t know; you can pick one of those eighties action movies you keep threatening to show me.’

‘Predator it is, then,’ Adrian said.