2014 February 25 Tuesday

  Mrs Shaw is halfway through reading a passage from the book. Stef tries to keep his focus on her words but they bleed and fade around the edges. The steady drumbeat of rain on the window is fighting with the white noise of the cssroom for the honour of drowning her out. Penscrape. Murmurs. The rhythm of two dozen people breathing. He snatches fragments of dialogue from the air and scribbles them down.

  Flies in the air. Lennie and the puppy.

  His pen bounces against the palm of his other hand, tapping out a rhythm in time with the rain on the windows. The page is nearly bare and his scrawled words slide like oil under his vision. It is a fight to keep his attention here and now. His thoughts are slithering through cold water, numb and sluggish and carried along by an unseen current.

  He breathes too deep because anything else does not bring in enough air. The throb from his ribs with each breath anchors him but even that slips and skids in the sea of sound around him.

  Numbness is creeping up his leg. The cast digs into the flesh, too tight and yet loose enough to let cold breezes in to chill the tender flesh still healing underneath. He shifts to find a more comfortable position, or at least a less uncomfortable one, and a jagged jolt of pins and needles runs up his leg. He winces and fights down a whimper at the sensation as it sends secondary cascades of aches spilling along half-healed bones.

  Even bitten down, it still feels like a shout in a tomb.

  The room is a frozen moment of stillness as if everyone is holding their breath, waiting for him to say something. To do something. He has had that nightmare. Of sitting under the panopticon gre of Mrs Shaw or Mr Raphoe or Ms Kent as the world watches in silent derision at the awful, awkward nonsense that spills from his mouth.

  No-one is looking at him.

  The world is still as a painting, life caught between moments.

  A flicker of motion at the edge of his vision. His gaze follows it without thinking, grabs it like a lifeline against the stillness. The rain has stopped. Nothing falls. Drops stubbornly refuse to slide down the window. The sky is dark as smoke at night, clouds brooding mid-churn, frozen between movements. The trees at the boundary of the school grounds stand as skeletal as ever, their bare limbs twisted and waiting. Then, they shift. Curl like fingers. Little waves of greeting in a frozen world.

  Stef squeezes his eyes shut, his breath sharp and shallow. Not real. Not real. He refuses to look until he hears the world again. Slowly, the murmur of breath, life, people seeps back into his ears, like surfacing from underwater. Only then does he dare open his eyes again.

  The world moves. The sea of sound swirls around him but keeps its distance. He can see Mrs Shaw move and speak, ask a question and draw an answer out of Maxine in the front row, but the words are too far away to hear.

  It's nothing. Just tired. Not real. Not real.

  Something is whispering. A susurrus of half-words rises like static in the silence. Stef feels it coil about him like summer heat. The sound ripples across the edges of his vision, static thermal shimmer as the world seems so far away.

  And he realises there is something else in the room. An emptiness fills the corner of the cssroom. It is a person-shaped gap where shape and form should be, famine-thin and ceiling-tall, and its absence of eyes are looking directly at him.

  Not real not real not real.

  His fingers dig into his desk, nails raking into the wood.

  Not real not real not real.

  The rippling static of the whispers presses close, wrapping around him and constricting. His breath shallows, accelerates. Blood hammers in his ears.

  Not real not real not real.

  A hand on his shoulder.

  Stef jerks violently away as if the touch is fire. The chair screeches in protest at the sudden motion before cttering to the floor and dragging him with it. Bright agony paints the interior of his ribs and he cannot keep the pain inside.

  The whispering is gone and in its pce is a silence so absolute that it crushes its way into him, pressing into his eardrums and filling the gasping, airless hollow in his chest.

  Everyone is looking at him.

  The cssroom crashes down on him like a wave. No words yet but every other sound fills the void. Rain and breath and rustling cloth and scrapes of movement. People are turning to see him, standing to get a better view over desks.

  A voice - human, blessedly human - finally reaches him.

  "Stefan? Are you alright?"

  Mrs Shaw is standing over him, her expression is caught between concern and caution. One hand is half-offered to him. His gaze flickers past her to see one of his cssmates staring as if he were an animal.

  He swallows against the dryness in his throat and reaches to pull himself to his feet. There are wood splinters under his nails and half-moon rakes torn deep into the desk. Everything hurts.

  "Stefan?"

  His breath shudders out of him and he feels himself burn. Staring eyes sear into him like coals on bare flesh. He wants to shrink, to fold into himself and disappear. He can hear the whispers, already imagine the rumours that will spread. The static is still coiling in his bones, slithering along his ribs and knotting at the base of his skull.

  "Do you need to step outside?" Mrs Shaw asks again, softer this time.

  He should say no, shake his head and pretend nothing happened. Pretend that his cssmates' wide eyes and hushed voices don't exist. Pretend he didn't just...

  "Come on," she says, voice cutting through the fog in his head.

  He doesn't hesitate. He pushes himself up too fast, wobbles as he finds his footing on his crutches, and follows Mrs Shaw out. He doesn't look at any of them as he goes, locks his gaze low away from the window, away from the corner.

  The css watches, pulling back to give him too much space as he passes. Their bright eyes never leave him.

  He hears it as he steps through the threshold. A voice, hushed but sharp.

  "Did you see his eyes?"

  Mrs. Shaw opens the door to an empty cssroom, and he steps inside, shoulders locked, refusing to turn back. She shuts the door behind them with a quiet and final click and the world is drowned in silence stale with dust and old dry paper. He sits before he is told, dropping into the nearest chair. She pulls a chair near - close but not too close - and settles herself at eye-level, watching him with careful, assessing concern. "Do you need me to get someone?"

  He shakes his head, gaze on the far wall.

  "Are you feeling unwell?"

  Another shake, still not looking at her.

  "Do you want to talk about what just happened?"

  He stares at a patch of the floor in response.

  She waits and lets the quiet settle between them. He listens to the sounds beyond the walls of the silence. The distant patter of rain, the murmur of another css, the faint hum of the building all around them. The world keeps turning even if he feels torn loose from it.

  Finally, Mrs Shaw sighs, not frustrated and not unkind. Saddened. She picks up a pen from the nearby desk and clicks it absently. "I'm going to have to talk to someone about this, you know."

  His stomach drops.

  "I know things haven't been easy. After the accident and..." She hesitates, choosing her words carefully. "Everything."

  She knows. Of course she knows. Everyone knows now.

  She exhales through her nose, tilting her head. "But I need to know if you’re okay. And if you’re not, we need to get you some help." There’s no accusation in her voice. But there is a quiet expectation.

  Stef stares at his hands. At the lingering indentations in his palms from the edges of his nails, at the flecks of splinters torn from the desk and caught under them. He picks at one, pulls it free with a bright fsh of pain and relief, and stares at it.

  Mrs Shaw watches, brow creasing slow and sharp. "Are you okay, Stefan?"

  He shakes his head, never looking at her.

  She studies him for a second longer before she stands, stretching out her back with a faint crack. She exhales, then pulls open the door. "I will be back in a moment."

  The door clicks shut again and the quiet seeps in as he waits.

  The air in the cssroom is thick with silence and the murmur of the school outside might as well be another world.

  His body feels wrong, as if broken and put back together piecemeal. The lingering fire of adrenaline is still burning its way out of his blood and the tightness in his ribs refuses to settle no matter how he breathes. He carefully plucks the splinters from beneath his nails and sets them aside, tries not to look at the bright crimson pain that comes with them.

  The window is behind him.

  He doesn't want to look. He can feel them watching.

  He stares at the desk, at the faint scratches left behind from hundreds of students. Someone had carved initials into the corner. Another had written in marker, “Jonah is a wanker”, the ink faded but still readable.

  The quiet seeps deeper in and he can hear the cssroom next door still reading. A familiar voice drifts through the wall, muffled but recognizable.

  "‘I didn’t bounce him hard,’ said Lennie."

  Stef closes his eyes.

  2014 March 19 Wednesday

  The waiting room is too quiet.

  Not the comfortable quiet of libraries or zy days, or that brief time after waking when the world holds its breath before the weight of the day comes crashing down. It was the sort of quiet that sharpens every sound into a bde. A thick, held-breath quiet of unwanted anticipation and waiting for consequences.

  Stef slouches in the chair and takes up as little space as possible. His eyes are sliding over the bright pastel posters preaching mental health awareness and offering help in trying times, then back to the roof tiles to count them for the third time, trying not to listen to the whispers under the flywhine buzz of the fluorescent tubes. He shifts again in the seat, trying to find some way of sitting that doesn't leave him numb and sore.

  His father gres as the rustle of chair on carpet and bitten down breaths of discomfort interrupt his thoughts. He has been sitting opposite Stef since they arrived and has not said a word since speaking to the receptionist. His mouth is fixed into a thin, unhappy line save when it creases into a frown. His eyes cut across the room, flicking from the ticking clock to the receptionist slowly tapping at her keyboard with equal ire at the temerity to interrupt the silence.

  The receptionist pauses at her typing to turn on the radio. A low cssical melody flows into the silence and finishes drowning the hiss and whispers. Stef feels himself let out a breath he had been holding forever. He stares down at his hands and studies the faint crescent-moon pressure marks on his bloodless palms from the car ride over.

  A door opens deeper into the building. Footsteps cut into his thoughts, and then a voice. "Stefan Riley?"

  The name nds wrong. Stef feels his shoulders tense, hands twitching and curling toward the sleeves of his hoodie. He looks up to see a tall man standing in a nearby doorway, his shirt sleeves wrinkled from a long day of work.

  "I'm Dr Calloway." The man smiles, light and professional, but Stef can feel himself curling inward under his gaze. "If you'll come with me?"

  Calloway doesn't seem to notice and simply waits, unhurried at a polite distance, as Stef reaches for his crutches and pulls himself out of the chair.

  "Go on, then." His father finally speaks, tone ft and neutral. He studies Calloway from his seat, hard eyes peering through beetled brows.

  Calloway holds the door into his office for Stef before letting it close with suitable finality behind them both.

  "Please, sit wherever you like." Dr Calloway says as he closes the door.

  The office is smaller than Stef expected, in a way that feels cosy rather than cramped. A small library's worth of academic titles fill bookshelves along one wall, scattered through with ornaments and decoration. The desk sits near the window, partly outlined by bars of afternoon sunlight peeking through the blinds. A couple of chairs and a couch sit near a small table across from it, all set at deliberately casual angles.

  Stef chooses the chair closest to the bookshelf. He angles it slightly away from the others and lets himself settle into it with a squeezed breath of discomfort.

  Calloway picks up a notepad from his desk and sits down in the other chair. Stef looks away from those eyes, focussing on a chunk of wall beside a painting of sunflowers. He still hears the scratch of pen on paper.

  "Thank you for coming in to see me today, Stefan." He begins, voice light and conversational. "Before we begin, I need to advise you that everything we discuss here will be treated with the strictest confidence. The only exceptions would be if I believe you or someone else is at risk of serious harm. Otherwise, everything will be kept between us."

  Stef nods quick and slight. His gaze focuses on the sunflowers, counting the leaves and petals.

  "Dr McGregor referred you to me. He said you were having difficulty sleeping. That you had a difficult time after the accident."

  Stef shrugs, keeps counting. Twenty-seven petals.

  "Then, after what happened at school, your parents pushed to get this appointment as soon as possible."

  Another shrug, smaller this time. Twenty-nine petals this time.

  Calloway waits. Stef feels his gaze like hot coals. Twenty-five petals this time.

  "Do you know why you're here, Stefan?"

  Silence stretches out. Stef pulls his fingers deeper into the sleeves. His gaze falls off the sunflower painting to the empty wall below. Featureless. Bnk. Nothing that could move.

  "The referral mentioned that you had some trouble in the emergency department," Calloway continues. His voice still as light and calm as before. His gaze still coals-on-skin searing. "The report said that you seemed panicked and became unresponsive after they mentioned your parents."

  A flicker of something tight and sharp stings the inside of Stef's chest. His shoulders shift. "I don't remember," he mutters.

  Another quiet scratch of pen on paper. A few words more.

  "It's ok, that can be expected so soon after an accident," Calloway says, voice calm as still water. "And then, a few weeks ter, there was the night in the rain."

  A tremor moves through Stef's ribs, quicksilver fast and leaving a trail of crimson ache in its wake. The memory is brilliant bright and razor-edged. The silver light all about him, the pull beneath his skin, the song threading through his breath and his bones, warm and distant and safe. Then his father's voice smashing through it all, blunt and ruinous and loud as a hammer. The song shattering like gss. The cold rain on his skin.

  "I don't know," Stef says, voice ft. His mouth is dry as dust.

  Calloway lets the silence settle around them, broken only by more pen-scratch on the notepad. Finally, he speaks again. "Then, three weeks ago, the school called your parents."

  Stef stares at the bookshelf. His eyes trail along titles and author's names without seeing any of them.

  "Your teacher, Ms Shaw, reported that you seemed distressed. That you reacted strongly when someone touched your shoulder. Your cssmates were concerned. As was she."

  The whispering. The trees moving in a still, frozen world. The figure in the corner, thin and empty and watching him.

  "What do you remember?" Calloway says.

  "I was just tired." Stef murmurs the words, his fingers tightening in his sleeves. The titles blur into a rippling wave of white and bck that crawls along the jutting vertebral spines of the books.

  Another note. Another silence.

  At some point, Dr Calloway passes him a form.

  The questions blur and run into each other. Stef stares at it for a long time before taking the pen. His fingers feel numb and cold. The pen hovers over the page as he reads and rereads. The words smear together. Finally, he marks 0/Never for all the answers.

  Calloway doesn't react when Stef slides the form across the small table. He doesn't even look at it immediately, just leans back slightly in his chair and folds his hands together.

  "You don’t like feeling out of control." It's not a question.

  Stef doesn't answer.

  "I think that is what's making this hardest for you," Calloway continues, weaving his words slow and careful. "You're trying to hold onto something solid, but everything keeps shifting under your feet."

  Stef swallows, staring into the wall again.

  "I see a lot of post-traumatic stress in cases like yours. After a serious accident, after something distressing. Derealisation, dissociation, sleep disturbances, strong panic responses."

  Stef clenches his jaw, tries to ignore the ripple in the corner furthest from the window.

  "I'd like to switch your prescription to Quetiapine - 50mg to start and see from there. It will help you sleep and take the edge off things."

  Stef feels his teeth grinding and forces himself to keep breathing. The clean bars of sunlight though the window shimmer like reflections on a wind-swept pond. He finally finds his voice. "Do I have to?"

  Calloway sets his pen down, his voice still calm and level. "I think it will help. And I'd like to keep seeing you each week for the next while."

  His father stands as soon as the door opens. "Well?"

  "New meds." Stef shrugs. The movement feels distant. His limbs feel heavy, his skin too tight.

  His father grunts, expression closed off. He doesn't speak again until they get home.

  They get outside in time to see the sunlight consumed by clouds scudding in and pressing low. He steps toward the car, and in the window, his reflection moves a second too te.

  Not real. Not real. Not real.

  He swallows hard and blinks, and the world settles.

  2014 April 26 Saturday

  The clouds lingered even after the rain ended, clustering close to the ground. They crowd the sky and crush out any thought of sun. Stef feels himself hunching under their weight of them. He doesn’t risk looking up. The endless span of grey consumes the horizon and presses close at the edges, threatening to swallow the barely-blooming trees and the spires of St. Giles cathedral.

  The air is thick with the humidity of recent rainfall. It clings to his skin and settles in his hair. Stef knows it should be refreshing - that’s what his mum always said about walking after the rain, you were seeing the world after the dust had been washed away and the petrichor was fresh and bright.

  Petrichor. That’s a good word. He feels the echo of it in his head, dismantles it into sounds and component fragments.

  Petra ichor. Earth blood.

  A snapshot thought fres into his head. Petra in the industrial estate instead of him. Too small. She can’t run like he can. Like he could before. He gres down at the walking boot wrapped about his still healing leg. No more crutches at least, no more cast. But even this walk was firing an ache up his leg and into his spine. He should have brought the cane. Should have remembered it.

  Petra ichor. The image fres back into life. Little Petra broken on the shattered gss and bck ice, bleeding into a cold night as her big brother runs away. He feels his chest clench tight against the coming tremor. His ribs fsh in protest and the pain grounds him.

  Not real. Not real.

  “Hey! Earth to Stefan!” Russ calls back to him. He’s a couple of steps ahead of Stef, steps slow to keep pace. They had been walking since the rain stopped, just for the sake of getting out of the house and away from the choking close atmosphere in there. It would be good for him, Russ had said. Get him outdoors and away from four walls and TV screens.

  The first few streets had been fine. Nice level ground that didn't need the cane. Past red brick and privet green, skirting parked cars washed to brilliance by the rain. He had kept his head down as they walked, following the rhythm of Russ' steps without thinking, without really seeing. But then the path of their wandering had opened into the park, framed in wrought iron that gleamed dull as thunder in the grey daylight.

  The trees here were neat and trim, shivering like shorn sheep in a breeze that sent their early green dancing. They stood surrounded by neat boxy hedgerows and radial arms of flowerbeds stirring with the brilliant gold of daffodils.

  It should be beautiful. It should mean something. But as Stef looks at it, all he feels is the same dull, unchanging weight in his chest. The sky is too close, the air too thick, the colours ft as a child's painting. He doesn’t realize he’s stopped walking until Russ calls again, voice cutting through the haze— "Stefan? Are you ok?"

  Russ is looking at him now, his brow creased with concern. Stef blinks, recentres himself, and nods. He should say something but the words feel distant and out of reach. "Tell me if it's too much, yeah?" Russ is standing beside him now, hands slightly raised as if waiting to catch him.

  Too much? It doesn't feel like anything at all. "It's fine."

  "Ok...." Russ sounds ft, unconvinced, his mouth presses into a thin line. He looks around then points ahead, unsure what else to do with his hands. "Just a little bit further to the pond. Then we can catch our breath before heading back."

  It's only pretending to be a question. Stef nods anyway.

  Russ fills the silence as they walk. "Did you hear about Lucas and Kearney?"

  Stef nods. He has no idea what Russ is talking about, but it doesn't matter. He's learned to make the right noises at the right times. "Yeah," he murmurs.

  Russ keeps talking, his voice a steady current that carries them forward.

  "It’s ridiculous, man. Lucas is acting like Kearney betrayed him, but honestly? Kearney told him ages ago he wasn’t into that whole ‘ride-or-die’ friendship thing. Lucas just ignored it."

  Stef nods again.

  "Like, dude, it's not that deep. People grow apart, you know?"

  "Yeah," Stef says.

  Russ ughs, shaking his head, "Exactly."

  Stef mirrors the smile. His eyes are fixed on the path and the gssy expanse of the pond ahead that turns the looming clouds into polished steel.

  They reach the pond as a duck glides in for a nding. When it touches the surface, nothing changes. Nothing detracts from the perfect mirror of the sky. Stef feels something cold coil in his stomach.

  "You know, you scared the shit out of me."

  The words come suddenly, pulling Stef back. Russ is looking at him, something hard and intense in the depths of his gaze. Stef can't bear the weight of it. He blinks and looks away.

  "I did?" His voice feels wrong in his mouth, slow and too far away.

  "Yeah, idiot." Russ' ugh is short, too thin. A sharp edge beneath his words. "You almost died."

  Stef can't find the words. He knows he should feel something. Guilt or gratitude or anything. But there's just the water. The duck floating, drifting weightless in the unbroken reflection of a dull silver sky.

  "I-"

  A sudden bark shatters the quiet. A golden retriever bounds toward them, tail wagging, paws kicking up damp earth in gleeful exertion. Excited. Eager. Pyful.

  Then it stops.

  Stef sees the exact moment of it.

  The dog goes still, ears fttening, tail tucking sharply between its legs. Its eyes widen - white rimmed, too much white. A sharp, startled bark. A step back. Another. Then it turns and scrambles away fast enough to set its paws slipping wild and uncontrolled on the wet grass.

  A moment ter, a jogger catches up, breathless and sprinting. He catches the dog and holds her until he can reattach a leash. "Sorry about that! She's usually so friendly, no clue what got into her!" The dog's eyes never leave Stef. She growls, a low trembling sound, until the jogger pulls her away with another apology.

  Stef watches dog and man disappear down the path until they are consumed by distance and foliage.

  Russ is still watching him, brow creased in something that looks like concern but feels sharper than that. "What the hell. You okay?"

  Stef nods on automatic. "Yeah."

  Russ doesn’t look convinced. His shoulders ease, just slightly, but there’s something tense beneath his expression. "I just—" he exhales sharply, runs a hand through his hair. "I just don’t know what I would've done."

  Stef knows he should react. Russ' voice is so full of something thick and alive that Stef can't reach. He needs something, and Stef just feels himself falling. Sinking. The air is thick as water, and the weight of the sky is holding him under.

  Russ’ fingers twitch at his side like he’s debating reaching for him. Instead, his voice drops, quieter. "Are the meds helping?" Stef freezes. The dog is gone, but something cold still lingers in his chest, coiled like a muscle waiting to spasm. Russ is looking at him again, trying to be casual about it, but there’s something too sharp behind the words.

  Stef stares at the pond. The duck is still drifting. Unbothered. Untouched. His mouth feels dry. The lie is too easy.

  "Yeah,"

  Russ nods, relief flooding his face. Like that was what he needed to hear.

  "You don’t have to say anything," Russ says after a pause, his voice brittle. "Just tell me you’re here, okay?"

  Stef nods. The words fall out of his mouth without thought. "I'm here." And Russ finally smiles.

  They sit by the water, perched on the edge of a mostly dry bench. Silence lingers for long enough to let the world breathe. Their shoulders touch, leaning together in support against fatigue. Stef fails to keep his gaze away from the mirror-still pond and the ducks sliding across the sky within it.

  Eventually Russ breaks the comfortable silence. "Did you ever think about everything else?"

  Stef blinks, looks at him leaning comfortably against his shoulder.

  "The rest of the world. Beyond Almsworth." Russ waves his free hand into the distance, encompassing the world in one sweep of his arm.

  Stef half-shrugs, not wanting to disturb Russ' rest. "Sometimes." It seems like the right thing to say.

  "I want to see it." Russ is looking at him with fire-bright eyes now. "I can't stay here. Can't breathe here. Like I'm just waiting for something to happen. Or for it to take something else from me." He goes silent, expression creasing dark and sharp with memories.

  Stef should think about this. Should have opinions. Instead, the words slip out before he processes them. "Yeah."

  Russ settles, tension fading from his voice. "I knew you'd get it."

  Stef mirrors his smile.

  Silence reigns for another while.

  "I'm gd we did this," Russ says finally, his voice softer than Stef has ever heard it. Stef knows he should say something meaningful. Instead, he just nods, "Me too."

  Russ smiles. Stef mirrors it.

  Russ talks again on the way back. His words tumble together to fill the silence, stringing together stories and observations and half-formed thoughts that don’t need answers. Stef walks beside him, nodding when he feels he should but the words slide over him, their meanings slipping away before he can catch them.

  The trees lean in, branches trembling with the nervous weight of lingering rain. The world beyond feels unreal, smeared out and blurred at the seams. Like watching though water just a little too deep to ever reach the surface.

  He gnces back at the pond before they leave the park. It is a mirror of the silver-grey sky stretched thin. The clouds reflect back at him in long torn streaks, as if pulled to breaking and pushed carelessly back together. Something stirs at the corner of his vision. Something dark moves beneath the surface of the pond and a ripple spreads zily in its wake, breaking the mirror sheen into a thousand broken-gss shimmers.

  Stef blink hard. The surface smooths, the water shows nothing but the sky stretched cold and endless above him.

  Russ gnces at him, his voice cutting through the fog inside. “You good?”

  Stef nods without thinking, the motion instinctive. Meaningless.

  “Yeah”

  2014 August 6 Wednesday

  The heat of the day was starting to break but the air still clings thick and slow, wrapping around Stef's skin like something alive. The sun has crept behind a thin veil of cloud and the sky is a bleached-out corpse strung high overhead, pale and bloodless, without end or pity. He can't bring himself to look up at that endless gre. The heat presses itself through his skin and slowly boils his bones even in the shade. Breath catches in his throat. It's hard to tell if he's breathing at all through the days of heat that are baked into the air.

  "You can't hold your breath forever."

  Dr Calloway's voice cuts through the thickness in his ribs, slipping between bone and thought like a bde. The words don't belong out here in the daylight where the scent of grass and hot concrete is carried on the breeze. But they come anyway, settling into his chest.

  The same discussion. The same careful unravelling. Dr Calloway picking him apart by threads with his razor gaze and little notes of pencil on paper.

  "You keep telling me you feel fine." Stef had shrugged. Wasn't that what all this was for? The medication and the check-ins and the talks? "Fine and numb aren’t the same thing."

  He couldn't find the words to answer that.

  Russ is talking as they move from shade to shade, pace easy despite the weight of the air. He moves at the same quick step he always does., unbothered by the heat and full of an energy that Stef has to remind himself to match. He nods in the right pces. Mutters something noncommittal when Russ pauses. Just keep moving.

  "What happens when you stop holding it all in?" Stef had looked at the clock. At the door. At nothing. Calloway hadn’t let it go, just another mark in his notepad. Another sharp-eyed look. "Because sooner or ter, you will."

  Stef had kept his jaw locked, said nothing.

  They round a corner out of the long hedgerow shadows and the house comes into view. Just another suburban semi pressed out of the same redbrick moulding machine as all the rest. Familiar in shape and worn around the edges. It sits pulled back from the pavement with a car parked slightly off-centre like someone meant to fix it but never did. A dark blue hatchback, bodywork showing a few bruises and a half-worn sticker of a rainbow dinosaur on the rear window. Stef tries not to think of what his father would say about it.

  "You know what happens when you hold your breath too long?" A pause. "Eventually, your body forces you to inhale."

  His ribs feel too tight. Something is pressing against them from the inside.

  Russ walks straight up to the front door, knocks once and steps inside without waiting. "Come on." He looks back at Stef, cheerful chiding before he even really sees Stef hesitating. Like he expected this. Like he knew.

  Stef steps inside. The house exhales.

  There is no silence here.

  Not the kind Stef is used to - the dense, muffled hush of rooms that expect to be left undisturbed. The kind of quiet that settles into the corners and stays there, thick and stagnant, pressing down on voices until they come out hushed, or not at all. Here, the quiet is textured, yered, filled with the subtle noise of a pce that expects to be lived in. A low hum from the fridge. The whir of fans keeping a breeze flowing through the shade. The muffled sounds of music somewhere distant, the creak of old floorboards adjusting to weight.

  There are no empty spaces here.

  Nothing like the bnk walls at home, the ones that feel unfinished, or deliberately emptied. Nothing here has been stripped back or kept for keeping’s sake. The hallway is narrow but full. A child's jacket is draped across the banister, a glittery keychain hanging from an unzipped bag and swinging zily in the breeze. The walls are crowded with framed photos, postcards pinned to corkboards and a riot of rainbow drawings made by small, unsteady hands.

  The air is not empty here.

  It carries scents that stir fragments of memories unbidden from deep and lost pces. Something warm and floral tickles his nose. The lingering echoes of incense fades at the edges. A faint trace of something unctuous cooked hours ago.

  Russ moves through it like he belongs here. He leads Stef past photos of smiling faces and into a long living room that is just as busy and full as the hallway. A bookcase fills one wall, stacked high and unevenly with books and CDs, photos and clustered little ornaments. One whole shelf near the window is full of stones, shells, pinecones and fossils, all arranged to catch the light in a row that is more enthusiastic than organised. Stef’s eyes settle on one stone in particur, small and smooth and dark even in the little shaft of sunlight that illuminates the shelf. His hand tenses as he looks at it, wanting to feel the weight of it in his hands and stare into its depths.

  “Earth to Stefan…”

  Russ’ amused voice slices through his thoughts and drags him back to simply standing in someone else’s home. Stef’s gaze snaps up to see him grinning back as he finishes hugging a woman standing by the sofa. She gives Russ one final squeeze before letting go and turning to Stef, offering her hand. He takes it instinctively and gets a brief, firm shake in exchange.

  Her eyes cut into him. Knife-keen and watching. Not in the way his teachers do, searching the right way to drag him out of himself, nor his parents, wanting answers but afraid to ask. These eyes are careful and cautious, and something deep in Stef prickles in response. The air seems to thicken for a heartbeat as muscles lock and coil into readiness. A sharpness in her eyes echoes back to him and a thought below words passes unbidden through the fog in his head.

  Not prey.

  The moment flickers out as fast as it fred, and the woman is letting go of his hand. She’s smiling, as bright and warm as the day outside. “Lovely to meet you, Stefan. Russ has told me a lot about you. Please call me Jenny”

  Stefan takes a moment too long to nod and smile a reply.

  Jenny lets go of his hand and steps back, brushing down the front of her shirt, as if settling something back into pce. "Right." She turns toward Russ, businesslike now though the warmth never leaves her voice. "You know where everything is. Ada went down about an hour ago so she should be fine until I get back. I doubt she'll stir unless she has a nightmare, but if she does -"

  "I got it," Russ says, waving his hand like they've had this conversation more times than they can count. "Water, maybe a cookie, a cuddle, and tell her the shadow in the hallway is just a coat rack, not a goblin."

  Jenny snorts, amused. "You joke, but she still asks about it." She looks toward the hallway, shaking her head fondly. Her voice softens, lost for a moment in memory. "She got that from Mark, I swear."

  Stef doesn't know what to do with himself. He perches at the very edge of the nearest chair, hands tucked between his knees, back too straight. His mind catches on the name as it lingers in the air between the two of them. He doesn't even want to think it. Not her name. Not anymore. Sharp memory rears up unbidden and he csps at his forearm, feels the faint pale-on-pale scars from her cws, doesn't hear what Russ said that made Jenny ugh.

  "Anyway, I'm sure she will sleep through." Jenny continues, her voice light. "The sun wiped her out this morning." She tilts her head slightly, gncing over to Stef as she gathers keys from a side table. "You both should get something to drink before you keel over. It’s a furnace out there."

  Russ makes an affirmative noise and heads toward the kitchen. Stef sits still. Just shakes his head, barely a movement.

  Jenny watches him for a second longer than necessary. No judgement or questions in her gaze, just watching.

  "Hey, Stefan! You want water or juice?" Russ' voice carries from the other room.

  Stef hesitates, squeezes his forearm once more, then clears his throat. Barely more than a breath "Water's fine."

  Jenny smiles again, softer this time but something thoughtful lingers behind it. "I'm gd Russ brought you over," she says and, for a moment, it's like she's weighing the words. Testing them before speaking. Then adds, "I hope you two don't get into too much trouble."

  It's light and pyful. Stef can feel something crumpled beneath them.

  Russ returns, two gsses in hand, and just like that the conversation shifts again. Jenny scoops up her bag and adjusts the strap with easy, practiced movement. "I'll be back soon," she says as she moves toward the door. "Don't break anything."

  "We won't." Russ rolls his eyes.

  Jenny pauses in the doorway, one st smile and wave. One st gnce toward Stef, eyes sharp beneath the warmth. Then she's gone.

  Stef doesn't move but he feels it as she steps outside.

  A presence moving, a weight leaving.

  The air shifts. The house exhales.

  "Well," Russ says, kicking lightly at the leg of the couch before dropping into it with a grin. "We have survived the interrogation."

  Stef gnces at him. His fingers curl tight about the gss in his hand. Condensation beads down the sides, slipping onto his skin in thin, delicate lines. The water inside is perfectly still, untouched. "Didn't feel like an interrogation."

  Russ hums, head tipping slightly to the side in a way that sends his fringe flopping over his eyes. "Yeah? She was definitely getting a measure of you." He leans back into the cushions and blows his hair out of his eyes, water banced against his knee. "Not in a bad way. She just likes to know people, y'know?"

  Stef traces his thumb over the gss, watching the condensation trails smear and reform. He doesn't answer. There's nothing wrong with that. Not really. People like to know people. But the thought of being measured makes something coil under his ribs.

  Russ doesn't press. Instead, he lifts his gss, tilting it slightly toward Stef in an absent motion. "Drink some. You look like you're shrivelling."

  Stef hesitates. He hadn't even realised he hadn't touched the water. He lifts it to his lips, takes a sip. Cool, crisp. Too clean against the heat.

  "There. Not so hard, was it?" Russ watches him, amused.

  Stef doesn't answer. Just takes another sip.

  Russ grins, drinks the st of his own water and sets the gss down on a side table beside a stack of paperbacks. He nods toward the TV. "Game?" He asks like it's inevitable. Like there isn't another option and it's already assumed that Stef will agree.

  There's no reason for Stef to say no. He looks at Russ waiting, slumped comfortably on the couch. He nods and Russ takes it as a win.

  "Pick something, then." Russ nudges the controller onto the couch cushions nearby like a treat to lure Stef off his perch. "But nothing slow. I refuse to suffer through another turn-based RPG in this heat."

  Stef huffs lightly, the closest thing to a ugh he has managed in a while. He cautiously slips from his seat-edge perch and settles on the couch beside Russ. His fingers slip easily around the controller, feeling the familiar weight of it.

  The TV hums to life and the world narrows to the screen.

  The game isn’t complicated. Something fast paced and reactive, all quickfire button presses. Russ had skipped past the title screen so quickly that Stef didn't even register the title. It was just a thing to do with his hands and mind. Better to do something than sit awkwardly in an unfamiliar room, waiting until the world catches back up with them.

  “Alright, try not to embarrass yourself, yeah?” Rus had said with a grin; all pride and no bite. He has settled deeper into the cushions of the couch, legs sprawling comfortably. Stef managed a faint breath of a ugh, something almost real, and got a friendly nudge on the shoulder in reward.

  They had been pying for long enough that the world was reduced to button presses and movement on the screen. The weight of the heat, the lingering tension of the unfamiliar room, the coil of unease at Jenny’s attention - all dimmed beneath the easy flow of the game. Even the music and sounds were muffled under rhythm of button-taps, volume turned low to avoid waking Ada upstairs. The loudest sound was Russ’ wandering commentary that wove in and out of the welcome hum of the fan and the distant, struggling hum of the fridge.

  Stef listens and nods along when expected. He smirks at the right moments, grimaces at the bad jokes. He feels himself sinking step by step into a mirror of Russ’ energy.

  The game gets close. Russ ughs when he nds a hit, then an over-the-top groan of betrayal when Stef manages to counter it. “That was bullshit,” He grumbles in theatrical outrage.

  “Wasn’t.” Stef mutters in reply.

  Russ nudges his foot against Stef’s - a light, barely-there push of contact that asks for nothing, expects nothing. A thoughtless gesture, the kind that slides into conversation unnoticed, effortless in its familiarity. It means nothing. It means everything.

  Stef nudges back without thinking. The motion is easy and natural. There is no pause, no deliberation. Just one movement following the other like a breath following an exhale.

  Russ grins, tilting his head toward him, amusement flickering across his face like sunlight off water. Sharp, quick, gone just as fast. “See, you’re getting it.”

  Stef smiles.

  The moment holds. Then it doesn’t.

  And then - he realises.

  He didn’t feel it.

  Not the moment. Not the flicker of connection or the easy familiarity, the feel of something real or solid. Not even the weight of his foot against Russ’. the way the body should know when it has touched something else. Reflex. Instinctive, automatic. A gesture without thought or weight or meaning beyond its function. It passed through him as light through gss - touching nothing, leaving nothing behind.

  The muscles in his face do not feel like his own.

  Russ has already turned back to the game, already lost in the rhythm of py, already pulling ahead with that same boundless energy that makes everything he does feel effortless. He does not notice. He never does.

  The fan hums. The fridge clicks on. A wnmower drones distantly outside. The room is warm. Still. Too still.

  Stef’s fingers tighten around the controller, just slightly. The weight of it grounds him, its familiar pstic edges pressing into his palms. It is real. He is holding it.

  It is real.

  It is real.

  "You can’t hold your breath forever."

  The thought settles deep.

  He exhales.

  The game continues.

  The rumble of tyres on gravel barely registers at first. The game is still running, the fan hums low and steady, and Russ is mid-sentence, half-ughing over something that had just happened on-screen. But then the front door opens, and something shifts. The house, warm and golden in the te afternoon light, feels different—not heavier, not colder, just somehow changed. Stef feels it in his ribs, in the space between his breaths.

  Russ reacts as if there is nothing there. He taps pause and drops his controller on the couch beside him, stretches out the kinks in his back from hunching toward the screen for so long. “Hey,” he calls toward the hallway, easy and familiar.

  Jenny steps into the living room, keys still in hand. She gnces toward them, eyes flickering briefly between the two before settling on Russ. “How was the afternoon?”

  “All good.” Russ shrugs, smiles easily. “Not a peep from Ada. Not even about goblins.”

  Stef nods, though he isn’t sure why. Because Russ already answered? Because it’s expected? Jenny watches him for a moment as she drops her keys back in the little rainbow-painted bowl beside the door, just long enough that something inside him tightens. He sits up, sits still, tries not to crease the fabric of the sofa any more than he already has.

  She doesn’t say anything at first, just sets her bag by the table and rolls her shoulders. “Ada should be waking up soon, so I was thinking of making something for dinner.”

  Russ perks up, bright and interested, but Stef hesitates.

  It’s an easy offer, a casual extension of something normal.

  For a moment—just for a moment—he thinks about saying yes. About staying a little longer, about waiting for the smell of food to settle into the air, about Ada’s small voice chattering about the day, about Russ grinning as if it was all just another piece of something familiar.

  Then his phone starts ringing and his heart falls somewhere into the pit he ought to crawl into. He doesn’t even have to look. He already knows. The weight of it presses into his ribs. His fingers tighten around the controller before he forces himself to move. A breath, barely drawn, and then -

  “Hi mum”

  “Don’t ‘hi mum’ me, Stefan Riley.” His mother’s voice is tinny and half-drowned by the hum of fans. He flinches from the sharpness of it. “Where are you? I was worried sick! You were supposed to check in an hour ago!”

  Stef fights to find his voice, lost as it is somewhere in that hollow emptiness inside his ribs. “Sorry, mum, I lost track of time. I’m with Russ.”

  “Well, you had better be on your way straight home!” There is a pause on the line, an inhale of breath. A long pause and a quickfire prayer for calm under her breath. She continues, voice calmer now. “I worry about you, Stefan. You know I worry about you. I don’t want a repeat of what happened. Please. Come home now.”

  “I will, mum. I’ll be home soon. Love you, mum.” His voice is barely above a whisper. Cold nausea coils deep beneath his ribs.

  “I love you too, Stefan. See you soon.”

  And with that the call ends. Stef feels himself crumpling down, down, into himself. The room is too close, too hot, too full of staring eyes. The shadows at the corners of his vision are squirming like the grasping hands of drowning men.

  Russ is looking at him.

  Jenny is looking at him.

  The world is spirals and shadows and their eyes cutting into him.

  Jenny’s expression is sharp as a bde, then it disappears and smooths itself into a smile warm-bright as sunlight. But he still cannot bear the weight of her gaze. “It was lovely to meet you, Stefan. Maybe next time.”

  Stef forces himself to nod, struggles desperately to find a few words of thanks but nothing comes. He forces a hollow smile. His eyes refuse to leave the floor.

  Russ pushes himself up from the couch with another long stretch. “I should probably head out too.” He doesn’t look at Stef when he says it and Stef is infinitely grateful.

  Jenny doesn’t call him on it. She just nods, like she’s already accepted the excuse. "Ada will be sad to have missed you, but you’ll see her tomorrow."

  The words aren’t for Stef, but they nd anyway.

  Jenny turns to him one st time. Her voice is warm, but there’s something chained and restrained in her words. "You’re always welcome here, Stefan."

  Stef hesitates, then nods again. He doesn’t trust himself to find the words.

  And in that moment of silence, Jenny’s arms are about him. Warm and close and not too tight, just a brief moment and he can feel himself crumbling. His eyes burn. He manages a smile but no words come. She fills the silence with soft words. “I mean it, Stefan. Any time. Russ has my number.” And with that she draws away and guides them toward the door.

  The door opens, spilling warm light into the hallway.

  Stef steps outside. He quickly wipes at his eyes before Russ can see him.

  The air is still heavy with heat and emptiness.

  The house exhales.

  2014 September 17 Wednesday

  The colr of his uniform sits too tight about his throat. It has been two weeks, but he still hasn’t gotten used to it again. It’s heavier than it should be, stiff in the wrong pces. The shirt colr makes him feel like a pet on show, held at attention for the benefit of the judges. He loosened the tie as soon as he was out the gates and away from their judgement, rolled the shirt sleeves up to his elbows despite the cooling autumn air. Not much, just enough to exist by.

  The walk helped.

  It felt good to be able to move properly again - no boot, no cane, no little stabbing ripples of pain running up from every step. No ache when he breathed deep.

  No-one to talk to.

  Russ was still in school. The only reason Mum had let him walk home alone after his appointment was because Dad had the car. He had checked in like they promised - said he was taking a walk via the park on his way back. The physio said he needed more exercise to get his strength back.

  Mum listened and made the noise in the back of her throat that she used when Dad talked about yet another job opportunity. The one that said she didn’t quite believe him but wasn’t ready to say so.

  The park felt too exposed, the pond too still, the sky a stark and looming immensity. He had not intended to do so, but his path had taken him past the fringe of the water. Close enough that he could see the pale grey-blue endlessness of the sky reflecting on its mirror surface. Close enough to be seen. The wind whispered in the trees, breaking into a hundred voices between the branches and leaves. Dream sounds. Jagged fragments of words. A thousand different echoes of his name.

  Not real.

  He had locked his eyes on the ground, counting curb stones and the cracks in the pavement until he reached the right street. Talked himself through the exercises to stay centred - Breathe. Count. Interrupt the thought - and by the time he reached the door, he almost felt calm.

  His finger hovers over the doorbell for a few seconds longer than necessary before he presses it. It feels like crossing a threshold to come here alone, for him to be the one to break the afternoon silence with its note.

  Footsteps. The door opens. Jenny leans lightly on the frame, her expression unreadable for a moment before she smiles. "Hi Stefan. Didn't expect to see you today." His shoulders go tight before he can stop them, breath catching in his chest. He can't find any words.

  Jenny's expression flickers. Something shifts behind her eyes and the spotlight intensity fades into softness.

  "Come on in. I'll make some tea." She steps back from the door with one st smile, slipping deeper into the house.

  Stef hesitates for half a breath before following. The door clicks shut behind him, and warmth wraps around his skin. The air sings with echoes of dried flowers and memories of incense, something quiet and steady and alive. He exhales, slow and careful, and feels tension slip away with it.

  "You can't hold your breath forever."

  Calloway's voice slides into his thoughts, intrusive but quiet, and he realises that Jenny is still looking at him. Her expression is carefully watchful. "You doing okay?"

  He wonders if she had already asked this question and he hadn't noticed. He shifts his bag on his shoulder, tugging at the strap to anchor himself before finally setting it down out of the way.

  "Yeah," he manages, "I guess."

  Jenny's look is sceptical, sharp as ever. Stef feels a prickle in the back of his neck under her attention before it breaks and she leads him toward the couch. "You need some tea. Come on, sit."

  He nods and settles himself onto the edge of the couch, listening to the kitchen sounds - mugs cttering, the warm gurgle of water, the fridge humming softly in the background.

  His hands feel strange in his p, like they should be doing something. He fidgets, fingers pressing absently against his forearm. The texture of old scars beneath his touch is familiar, grounding. His gaze drifts over the room, catching on a child’s book left on the table, bright googly eyes staring back at him.

  Then Jenny is back and pressing a warm mug into his hands. He can just about make out words in a handwritten font on the side. Well-behaved women seldom make coffee. Jenny sees his expression and smiles lopsidedly as she sits down in the chair opposite with a mug that says something about Ms Marple.

  He manages a small "thanks," as the herbal earthy scent of the tea enfolds him. His fingers curl about the ceramic, grounding himself in its warmth.

  Jenny sips at her tea, watching him through the steam as the moment settles. "Did you have a session with Dr Calloway today?"

  Stef just nods, letting the heat from the tea seep into his hands.

  "How did it go?" She tilts her head lightly to watch him through the steam.

  Her question is so small and gentle, her voice so light and warm and all around him. His grip closes tighter on the ceramic, knuckles whitening. He shoves jagged memories back down inside and takes a long drink of tea to scald them away. "Fine."

  Jenny nods, a moment of tension rising before being willed to fade away. The kitchen clock fills the long silence with staccato before she breaks it. "Has that name always bothered you?"

  "What?" He feels something hard in the base of his ribs. Tension crinkles with memories of old pain. The mug trembles in his hands for a moment before going too still.

  Jennifer lets the silence sit before shifting her grip on her mug, slim fingers tapping thoughtfully on the ceramic. "You know, about the only person who ever calls Russ by his full name is his father." Her voice is light, drifting away from the weight of the st question. "He's always been Russ to most everyone."

  He forces himself to breathe - inhale, count, exhale, repeat - but the tightness lingers in his ribs, tension still a chain of solid iron bars in his arms.

  "I was Jennifer back in school." She smiles faintly, her gaze flicking away for a moment. "God, that feels like a lifetime ago."

  Stef risks a gnce toward her. "You don't seem like a Jennifer."

  She ughs, warm and light as the steam curling from her mug. "No. I suppose I never did." There is a breath of quiet between them. A few heartbeats before she settles back to meet his gaze with kind eyes. "Mark always called you Stef, you know?"

  His fingers tighten around the mug, heartbeat thick in his ears. The way she says that name—like it still belongs to him, like it never stopped. He tries to speak, but the words catch, snagging between thought and breath. The name clings to his tongue, heavy, foreign, wrong.

  Not her name.

  Jenny watches him through the steam, expression unreadable but soft, "He always spoke so highly of you." Her gaze crinkles around the edges, and she looks away with a soft, quiet exhale that makes her next words a whisper. "I still miss him."

  The words settle in the space between them. Stef feels every heartbeat as the weight of silence fills the room. He doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Doesn't trust himself to do either. He just keeps his death-grip on the mug and watches the steam rising from the tea within.

  Jenny closes her eyes for a moment before letting her gaze settle on her own mug. "He was ... complicated." A small tired ugh slips out in the space between words. "Not that I'm one to talk."

  Stef just watches. A cold emptiness settles around his heart and he sips his tea to silence it with warmth.

  "He was a smart kid," she continues, softer now. "Sharp as a knife when he wanted to be, but he never turned it outward - always inward. Always against himself."

  Something stirs in the back of Stef's throat. Words he can't say stick to his teeth.

  "He tried, though." Jenny looks up at him then, eyes sharp with something deeper than nostalgia. "I think about that a lot. He tried. I just wish..." She trails off, shaking her head slightly. She doesn't need to finish. Stef already feel what comes next. The weight of it flows off her in waves. I just wish it had been enough.

  Stef closes his eyes to avoid looking at her, bites down the words and drowns them in a wash of tea.

  Jenny pulls herself out of it by inches. She blinks away the redness in her eyes and offers a small, worn smile to him, still raw around the edges. "I'm sorry. That's probably not what you came here to hear."

  "No," he says too quickly. "I mean - it's fine."

  Silence settles between them again, softer this time, less burdened. He focuses on his tea, swirling it slowly in the mug. The steam curls upward, dissipating into the quiet.

  Something in his chest clenches, an ache beneath the ribs. The weight of something unspoken presses against the back of his throat, heavier than the words he wants to say. "Do you think..." He hesitates, voice quieter. "Were Mark and Russ much alike?"

  "Yes and no." Jenny tilts her head, weighing the thought as it she wants to get it right. "They're both smart boys. Russ shows it more, always talks like he's a step ahead of you. But Mark was..." She pauses, looks at her hands closed around the mug, "He carried things differently. Heavy, all the time. Didn't smile much and it never reached his eyes."

  Stef nods slow. He can feel his own weight sitting beneath his skin, pressing between the ribs like something waiting to be let out.

  Jenny exhales, shaking her head slightly. "They were brothers. They fought like hell sometimes, but they loved each other. Russ just -" A soft sigh. "I don't think he ever really understood how much Mark was hurting." She pauses and her gaze shifts to Stef. "Russ means a lot to you, doesn't he?"

  The words nd heavier than Stef expects. He shifts his grip on the mug, feels the warmth of it against his hands, the solid weight of it in his hands. Then, finally, "Yeah."

  Jenny nods. She doesn't press. The room feels warmer, or maybe the tea is finally settling in. Its warmth settles against his palms and in the hollow space between his fingers. It gives him something to hold onto.

  She watches him for a moment longer, then leans back slightly, settling one arm along the side of the couch. Her fingers find a bright, colourful bracelet between the cushions and she smiles lopsidedly as she picks it up and puts it aside. It's an esticated strap linking a chain of little round pstic gemstones that jangle as they are set on the table. She looks satisfied, like a treasure hunter who has found a prize haul. "Ada was looking for this all day..."

  Stef watches the bright little thing settle and glint in the afternoon sun. "Where is she?"

  "After school py group. I'm sure she'll tell you all about it. Apparently they are making dinosaurs today." Jenny's smile brightens as she speaks, her eyes warmed by memory.

  "Should I go?" He pulls back into himself, elbows tight against his sides. Trying to take up as little space as possible. "So, you can go get her?"

  Jenny shakes her head, quick and light, before settling her smile on him. "No, Mairead is bringing her home." There is something light in how she says that name. She sees the bnkness in his eyes. "Ada's new best friend Aisling's mum. She lives a couple of streets away."

  Stef nods slow and sips at his tea, letting the warmth reach inside him in slow waves.

  "I'm sure she'd love to see you, Stef." Her gaze is light, her smile warm and he finds himself mirroring it. "She will tell you all about her dinosaurs."

  He makes a noise of vague acknowledgment in the back of his throat, letting the words settle. The weight in his chest eases, just a little, but not enough. It never does.

  A quiet moment passes. The hum of the fridge, the faint tick of the kitchen clock. He gnces down at the tea swirling in his mug, as if waiting for something to surface there.

  Jenny shifts slightly, adjusting how she holds her mug, watching him in that way she does He realizes too te that she’s reading him, that she’s waiting for something to happen, something to be said. She tilts her head slightly and fills the silence. “You still thinking about getting a job?”

  Stef lets himself exhale, a nervous half-breath half-ugh sound. "Yeah, Me and Russ talked about it."

  She lifts a brow to study him, "Oh? Any particur reason?"

  He shrugs half-heartedly, trying to make it seem casual. "We just... want to get out of Almsworth. Eventually. And I'm older, I can get the head start."

  Jenny doesn't reach immediately. She takes a slow tip of her tea, weighing the words on her tongue. Then, finally, "That's a good reason."

  "Dunno if I'll manage to find one, though," He adds, voice quieter. "Not exactly spoiled for choice. And school's already..." He hesitates, fingers tapping lightly against the sides of the mug. "Hard,"

  She studies him over her own mug, brows creased lightly and something lingering in her eyes. "Hard how?"

  Stef rolls one shoulder in an awkward half-shrug. "I don't know. Just feels like my head's full of fog half the time. Hard to focus. Words don't sit still. And even when I do get through something, it just -" He exhales, frustration adding a rough edge to his voice. "Doesn't stick."

  Jenny hums, thoughtful, her expression unreadable. "That from the meds, you think?"

  He shrugs again, smaller this time. "Maybe. I mean, they help with other stuff." The dreams, the flickering movement in the corner of his eyes, the things he doesn't want to see. "But school just feels impossible." He doesn't want to say the other part. The heavier part. That even if he was good at it, it wouldn't matter. That he'd still be stuck here. That it wouldn't be enough.

  She doesn't say anything at first. Just nods, slow and understanding, her gaze lingering on him. "You're not stupid, Stef."

  He barks out a quiet, humourless ugh, "Doesn't feel like it."

  Jenny's gaze sharpens. Not harsh, but keen and steady. "That's not the same thing." He doesn't answer and silence pools between them. She shifts slightly, setting her mug down and folding her hands across her knees. "And the meetings with Dr Calloway? Are they helping?"

  Stef hesitates. She doesn't mean it like his parents do. Not looking for progress or evidence or proof that this will all just go away if he tries hard enough.

  But still.

  "I don't know," He says, low and quiet and honest.

  Jenny nods. She stands, lightly patting his knee as she walks toward the bookshelves to rummage. Stef hears the rustle of paper, something slipped between pages. Jenny turns and holds something toward him.

  A book.

  Stef frowns slight, setting down his tea to take it. It doesn't scream self-help or therapy or anything else that Dr Calloway has pushed on him to read. A well-thumbed paperback with a folded piece of paper slipped in like a bookmark halfway through. Something in Jenny's expression makes him gnce back toward him.

  "You don't need to read it," she says easily, lightly. "But I thought you might like it. Mark did."

  He looks down at the book again with its watercolour art and slim bck font. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. His fingers tighten slightly around the cover.

  Jenny settles back in her seat and recims her tea, as if the moment doesn't need anything bigger than a few words. "You can stick around if you like. Ada will be back soon and Russ will call by after school." There is no expectation in her voice, just an invitation.

  He shifts slightly in his seat, holding tight to the book in one hand and the st of his tea in the other. "Maybe."

  "Well, in the meantime, if you help me fold some undry, I won't make you do dishes." Jenny's smile brightens into a grin.

  Stef makes a small noise that almost sounds like amusement. "Sounds like a scam."

  Jenny smirks, "Absolutely."

  2014 November 3 Saturday

  The evening air is sharp with the kind of cold that sinks through fabric and settles in the bones. Stef keeps his hands buried in his pockets as he walks, shoulders curled in against the wind. The Tesco uniform feels too bright under the streetlights and he is drowning in the oversized jacket, but at least it is warm. The long walk via the bypass made his already-aching feet protest but better the pain than passing near the industrial estate and all those knife-edge memories, or the long shadows of the woods.

  A sudden gust howled past him, billowing the coat and whispering fragments of sound in chill-whisper breath. He inhaled sharply, counted, exhaled. Again. The sounds keened sharper with each breath, jagged word-shards and pieces of his name cutting into his ribs before finally fading into silence.

  Not real.

  Rounding the corner into the street and the weight of it all presses down on him. He keeps walking, counting his breaths with his footsteps until he reaches Jenny’s front door. She answers the door almost as soon as he presses the bell. Her smile washes over him with the warmth of the house beyond her and she beckons him in. “Gd you could make it, Stef.”

  He manages a weak smile, still numbed by the chill of the walk, and closes the door behind him. The st whispers of wind die away, a storm consumed by silence. His fingers sting as warmth rushes back to them, and the ache in his feet settles into something dull and distant.. “Sorry for being te.”

  She shakes her head and pulls him into a hug. “Nonsense, you had a good reason. It’s good to have you here too” One hand lightly pats the logo on his jacket to emphasise her point as she holds the hug long enough to let its warmth chase some of the chill from his bones. She finally lets him go and draws him toward the dining room table.

  The usual books and papers have been cleared away, neatly stacked on chairs pushed as far out of the way as the room will allow. In their pce are two candles, tall and pale and set in clear gss stands. Both have been burned before but one stands a little lower than the other. Russ stands nearby, watching the candles with a brittle expression. He watches the candles, jaw tight, eyes shadowed. Even as he nods to Stef, his voice stays low, rigid with unsaid words. "Hey."

  Stef nods back, the weight of the room settling into his chest and stifling the words before he can speak. The silence thickens the air and presses tight against the walls. He shrugs off his heavy outer jacket and sets it aside so that there is less of him to intrude into this moment. Jenny stands beside the table, hands csped together at her waist, watching until he settles and stills.

  Stillness recims the room.

  Jenny reaches for the box of matches. A sharp strike, a rasping fre of sulphur and light. She shields the fragile fme for a moment then lowers it to the wick of the first candle. The fire catches. The wax glows soft beneath it, scentless and warm, as the fme steadies. She watches it for two heartbeats before exhaling softly. “For her,” she says, and nothing more.

  The fme flickers, settling a steady glow. The silence around it is different now, warmth and remembrance seeping into its dark corners and filling the shadows with echoes of light.

  Russ does not move. His jaw is set tight, eyes fixed on the candle, bright as fme as they watch the wax slowly trickle down the side. No words come. He simply watches, tense and still as a statue.

  Jenny lingers by the table, gaze distant and heavy with old thoughts. Her fingers ghost across the edge of the matchbox, brushing against the rough surface of the striker in some moment of memories unspoken.

  Then, a voice from the hallway - small and uncertain. “Mummy?”

  Stef turns first, then Jenny. Ada stands in the dim light of the hallway, clutching a stuffed stegosaurus in one small hand. Her feet are bare against the wooden floor, hair slightly messy from sleep.

  Jenny’s face softens instantly. “Shouldn’t you be in bed, love?”

  Ada tilts her head, eyes flickering across the table. “Why are you lighting candles?”

  Jenny is beside her now, crouched down and enfolding her in her arms. “To remember people we love.”

  Ada curls into her mother and watches the candle fme for a long moment. Then she nods, as if the answer makes perfect sense to her. “Oh okay.” And just like that, she turns and pads toward the stairs.

  Jenny follows her to the base of the stairs, waiting as Ada climbs a few steps before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her forehead. "Back to bed, love."

  Ada pauses, then holds up her plushie, expectant. Jenny huffs a small ugh, obliging with a quick kiss to its fabric head. "Sweet dreams for you and Steggy."

  She stays there, watching Ada pad back to her room. Only when she hears the soft click of a closing door does she turn back to the table, her lips ghosting into a smile.

  "Maybe next year."

  The moment lingers. Jenny lets the silence settle again. She lets out a slow breath to steady herself against the weight of this one. Russ shifts. His arms tighten around himself, gaze flickering to her hands and then away again.

  The strike of the match breaks the silence again and the second candle fres to life. The wax softens beneath it but the fme does not settle as easily. It flickers, unsteady and unsure of purpose, before finding its shape.

  “For him.”

  The words are quiet. Final. The candle fme flickers in the dim room, its glow stretching shadows across the table. Russ exhales sharply, arms unfolding as his hands settle against the table’s edge, fingers flexing like they want to grip something solid. Then he scoffs, the sound dry and hollow, barely more than a breath. "Bet he would have loved this." There’s no venom in it, no real bitterness, just something tangled and jagged, a mess of emotions too complicated to name.

  Jenny watches him, not surprised, not disapproving. Just watching. "Russ," she says, his name a quiet reminder rather than a scolding. He shrugs, looking away. His fingers tap against the wood once—restless, searching—before curling into his palms as if trapping whatever thoughts almost escaped.

  Stef watches the fmes, steady yet uneven. The scent of wax and smoke clings to the air, seeping into his clothes, his skin, the fabric of the moment. He does not know what to do with his hands. There should be something here, some weight behind his ribs, some pressure in his throat, some echo of grief sinking its cws into his chest. But there isn’t. There’s nothing, just the slow rise and fall of his breath and the way the candlelight bends in the stillness.

  He gnces toward the candle meant for Mark. The fme moves strangely, stretching in ways it shouldn’t, its edges curling like something alive, like something looking back at him. His breath catches, fingers tightening involuntarily. He blinks, once, twice, and the shape settles. Just a trick of the light. Just the way fmes move. He forces himself to believe it, to let the moment pass. The warmth of the room presses close, heavy, thick, cloying in a way that makes it hard to breathe.

  He should say something. Something real. Something that makes this moment matter. But the words stick in his throat, dry and lifeless. There’s nothing in him to offer, no grief, no anger, no resolution. Just the stillness, the hollow space where feeling should be. His gaze drifts down, away from the candle, toward the warmth at his side. Russ’ hand, resting close enough that their fingertips brush.

  For a moment, he hesitates. The warmth feels distant, like pressure through fabric, like a memory of touch rather than touch itself. But he reaches out anyway, crossing that small yet infinite distance, letting his fingers close around Russ’ hand. Russ doesn’t hesitate. His grip is firm, steady, anchoring. The warmth of it is undeniable, a tether to something real, something solid. It should mean something.

  Russ exhales, a breath that feels like it carries the weight of everything Stef cannot say. "You’re here, yeah?" His voice is quiet, cautious, as if he’s afraid of the answer.

  Stef swallows, and the lie comes as easily as breathing. "Yeah."

  Russ nods, satisfied. He believes him.

  Stef does not look at the candle again. For now, this moment—this quiet, fragile thing—is enough.