Head Over Heels Âœ“ 16 / lower sixth

september, age 16

The roads were busy on the first day back to school. Lucas sat in the passenger seat nervously clicking his nails until his mother put her hand over his to stop the irritating noise. She gave him a warm smile before glancing at the rear view mirror to check on her daughters. Liliana and Felicity, in the back row, were excited to be heading back to school, due to start Year Five and Year Two. Lucas couldn’t believe that next year would be his last year of high school while his sister would be coming to the end of her primary school days.

Charlotte sat right behind Lucas, idly flipping through a picture book. It was her first day of primary school, off to start at Mountain Mews, a junior school for children with special needs. Less than ten miles from home, it had one of the best facilities for educating children with hearing disabilities and many of the students went on to mainstream high schools. Sarah and Truman didn’t really mind where their youngest child ended up, as long as she found a school where she could be her best self.

“How’re you feeling, baby?” Sarah asked, squeezing his hand. “Big day today, huh?”

He nodded. “Huge.”

The first day of Lower Sixth was far more than just jumping from Year Eleven to Year Twelve. It was like a whole new school with new rules. There was a different uniform, a stiff blazer that itched his neck and trousers that would probably be too short when over the summer, a growth spurt had seen him shoot up to five foot eleven after finishing the year three inches shorter. There would be a wave of new students joining for sixth form, new timetables, new lessons.

A whole new form.

Lucas had grown comfortable after five years with Mr Finney. He and Mika had stayed in that same classroom ever since Year Seven and he knew it inside out, one of the little routines that had helped him in those long early days. By now, he was used to high school life but it was about to get turned upside down. No longer would his day be as structured with a handful of free periods every week and the ability to sign himself out of school without needing one of his parents to pick him up.

One of the major advantages of having a couple of extra parents was that there always seemed to be someone around. Cora was back to teaching Nursery which meant her afternoons were often free after the children went home at lunchtime; Truman worked closeby and was almost always free for lunch; Sarah’s schedule allowed her to essentially choose when she worked from home, and Floyd worked alongside his sister who gave him more freedom than she gave herself.

“You’re going to be absolutely fine, hun,” Sarah said, her fingers slipping around his hand before she had to let go to change gears. “Just two more years, can you believe it?”

“Don’t say that, Mum.”

She sighed. She was never quite sure what he wanted her to say. Sometimes she thought he couldn’t wait to be done with high school and fling himself out into the big bad world; sometimes he never wanted to leave and have to face real life. “I’m sure today will be fine. You’ve got Asher and Mika, right?”

He shrugged dramatically, letting heavy shoulders drop. “Who knows? We have new forms. I might not be with either of them, and I definitely don’t have Mr Finney anymore.”

“It’ll be ok. When do you find out what class you’re in?” she asked as she pulled up at the school’s south gate, closer to the sixth form centre. Before the mid-twentieth century, the school had been two separate institutions for boys and girls that had existed on two different plots of land, separated by a road that could be a nightmare to cross between lessons.

“Now,” he said, nodding at the gate where Mika was waiting for him already. Before he got out of the car, he saw Ishaana pull up a little way down the road and his jaw almost dropped to see that Asher was not only on time but twenty minutes early.

“There you go, baby. You can all go and find out together,” Sarah said with an encouraging smile. “Text me when you know, ok?”

He nodded, heaving a deep breath to calm his fears. “I will.”

“Do you need picking up later?”

“Nope. I’m going over to Asher’s,” he said. The two had made arrangements last week, promising that no matter how the first day went, they would probably need to wind down with something to eat. Lucas hadn’t heard from Asher for a couple of days, though that wasn’t out of the ordinary: he hated using his phone when the screen made it even harder to read, and he often went off the grid every now and then.

“Ok. Well, keep me in the loop and I’ll come and get you later,” she said, squeezing his knee before he got out of the car. “Have a great day, Lucas!”

“Thanks,” he said, turning around to wave goodbye to his sisters. Charlotte crossed her arms over her chest, holding her fists on her shoulders to ask for a hug. Lucas pulled open the side door to hug her before he waved and signed to Charlotte that he loved her. He had found that he was more expressive of his love to her, and more expressive in general, because there was so much he felt she was missing out on.

A moment later, his mother was gone and he was alone, walking towards the gate. Asher was approaching from the other direction, both of them closing in on Mika, but he didn’t have his usual smile. Lucas automatically frowned to see him looking a little distressed.

“Hey,” he said. “You ok?”

“Yeah, fine,” he said, nodding.

“Ash?” Mika peered closer, her face falling. “You look upset. What’s wrong?”

“It’s, uh…” He trailed off running his hand through his hair. “My cousin died on Saturday.”

Lucas gasped, his mind shooting to Claire. She was the only cousin of Asher’s that he had ever met, and she was now Lucas’s aunt too. “Which one?”

“Oh my goodness, Asher, I’m so sorry,” Mika said, empathy riddling her.

“Tori,” Asher said. “You didn’t know her, Lucas,” he added, sensing his friend’s panic. “I hardly knew her but it’s crazy, you know. And she had a little girl.”

Mika clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my goodness. That’s horrible. What happened?”

“She was hit by a drunk driver,” Asher said, starting to walk towards the sixth form centre with his bag hanging limply from his shoulder. “Her daughter’s fine. Sadie. She’s only two, I think. She won’t remember anything.”

Mika looked as though she might cry. She was susceptible to other people’s feelings, often stronger than they felt them themselves. “What’s going to happen to her? Does she have a dad?”

Asher shook his head. “She, uh … I think she’s coming to us,” he said. He looked a little confused, as though he couldn’t wrap his head around what had happened. It was a lot to take in. “Mum said that she and Dad told Tori they’d take Sadie if they needed to.” He scratched the back of his neck. “It’s only been two days and they’re already talking about adopting her.”

Lucas skipped over his thoughts to keep ahead. “Wait, so you’re getting a sister?”

“I think so.” Asher hitched his bag up over his shoulder. “I don’t know. It’s been a bit crazy.” He shook his head and rolled his shoulders. “Let’s just go in.” He nodded at the door, heading straight for it.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” Lucas asked. Mika had gone quiet, most likely overthinking everything.

“I’m fine.” Asher sighed. “I know it’s really, really shit, but I didn’t know Tori. She was way older than me. I hadn’t seen her since I was little. I’m ok.”

“Ok.” Lucas met his friend’s eye and smiled. Asher smiled back, holding his gaze and melting his heart.

There was a list pinned up on the notice board in the sixth form centre. Lucas’s heart leapt into his throat as soon as he saw it, his skin itching.

“It’ll be fine,” Asher said, bumping Lucas’s shoulder with a smile.

“What if none of us are together?” Lucas asked. What he really meant was: what if I’m not with either of you? He couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.

“Well, even if that happens, we’ll still see each other all the time,” Mika said with a supportive smile. “Worse case scenario, we’re in different forms. It could be a lot worse than that.”

That sounded pretty bad to Lucas. He had struggled without Asher, only managing at first when he had latched onto Mika. If she was taken from him too, he wasn’t sure how he would make it through the next two years.

“No point panicking now,” Asher said. “Let’s just see what it says.” He walked in a determined line, breaking through the huddle of Lower Sixth students trying to see whose class they would be in. When he reached the front, he pulled Lucas over to him to read the board that swam before his eyes. Lucas scanned the page quickly, one name jumping out before another, and a third.

All together.

The three of them were in the same form. A grin broke out across his lips and he pointed at the list that read L6CP at the top, tracing his finger down to his name, then Asher’s, then Mika’s. “We’re all together,” he said. “We’re all in L6CP. Who’s CP?”

“No idea,” Asher said. “That’s awesome!” He held up his hand for a high five and Lucas surprised himself by slapping his palm against his friend’s, unable to shed the glee from his lips. When he turned around, Mika hugged him without really thinking but he was too happy to let it bother him, holding onto her tightly for a couple of seconds before they let go.

“That’s amazing!” she cried out, darting forwards to check the list in case Lucas had read it wrong. But there it was in black and white. The year had been split into eight groups after the previous five, each one with ten students. Several had left to do their sixth form studies elsewhere, more than the number that had joined. The year had shrunk by at least ten percent. Lucas couldn’t complain: the fewer people the better.

“Happy?” Asher asked Lucas, who nodded.

“Very. But I still don’t know who CP is.” The initials didn’t ring a bell. He recognised a couple of the other tutors on the list – JM was his uncle, Jesse – but he couldn’t bring a teacher to mind. “We need to go to A36.”

Mika was flipping through a school handbook, rooted to the spot as she searched for any teacher with those initials in the staff list. “Oh!” She jabbed a name. “It’s Ms Prentiss. We had her for Year Eight English, remember?”

Lucas was flooded with recognition once Mika prompted him, his brain popping with snapshots of the woman who would be his tutor for the next two years. “I like her,” he said, recalling the lessons he’d had with her all those years ago. “She’s a bit quirky, isn’t she?”

“Very.” Mika tucked the book back into her bag and the three of them began the lengthy walk up to the English block, the same building that Asher and Lucas had spent the last five years in. It was as far as it was possible to get from the sixth form centre, the journey never completed in the allotted five minutes. On a good day, it took seven, but Lucas had known it to take ten before.

“Lucas?” Asher asked as they headed across the road and up the leafy path amidst a sea of students.

“Yeah?” Lucas hooked his thumb under his bag strap and looked across at him. It was hard to believe he wasn’t yet seventeen when he already looked old enough to be at university. Sometimes Lucas felt like such a child next to him.

“You’re still coming over tonight, right?”

“Are you sure that’s ok?” he asked. “Will your parents mind?”

Asher looked a little hopeless. He shook his head, shrugging one shoulder. “I want you to,” he said, his voice smaller than Lucas was used to. Even if he said he was fine, it was evident that he was bothered by the sudden change in his life, and understandably so. Lucas nodded and smiled. “I’ll be there.”

*

The new form room was bright and airy, a clean room at the top of the stairs with a view over the staff car park and the trees beyond. Huge windows let the light soak the room, making it seem even bigger than it was. Lucas liked it: unlike most of the school’s classroom, there was more than enough space for them all – especially with only ten of them – and he headed straight for a cluster of four tables that no-one had claimed yet. He chose a seat with its back to the wall. No-one would be nosying over his shoulder.

“That’s yours for two years,” Asher said, chuckling as he pulled out the chair next to Lucas and Mika took the one on the other side. “Make sure you like it.”

Lucas didn’t take such decisions lightly. He had spotted the seat instantly. Tucked away in the corner of the room, he had easy views of the door and the teacher’s desk as well as the rest of the class. He hardly even had to turn his head to see everything. “I like it,” he said, taking out his student planner and his pencil case.

Much like the first day of Year Seven, the first day of Year Twelve was an introduction to such a new part of school life. There had been no lessons to prepare for, no books to get ready: they didn’t have any. That fun was saved for the rest of the week. He crossed his ankles under the table and took out his phone when he saw that almost everyone else had done the same, waiting for the teacher to arrive. Opening his text conversation with his mother, he sent her a message.

LUCAS: Asher, Mika and I are all in L6CP together! (Ms Prentiss)

His phone sent it silently. He only ever had it on silent, hating the obnoxious sounds it tried to make every time he touched the screen. The taps of the keyboard irritated him to no end.

His mother’s response was almost instantaneous, only a few seconds passing before her message zoomed into his inbox.

MUM: Oh, Ms Prentiss? That’s your Auntie Phoebe’s aunt! She’s a lot of fun. I’m so glad you’re all together, baby. Have a WONDERFUL day and I’ll see you later xxx

Lucas showed the message to Asher. He laughed.

“So that means she’s, like, your fake great aunt,” he said with a snort. “I think you’re related to everyone in this town, Lucas. Six degrees of Lucas Flores.”

Even Mika chuckled at the observational truth, her head down as she doodled in her planner. She had a knack for art, even her doodles impressive as she created intricate patterns with no more than her pen. With a paintbrush in her hand, she could sweep dreams across a page.

In a flash of bright colours and long hair, the door swung open and Ms Prentiss swooped into the room in swathes of fabric. A bright, chunky necklace complemented the bold red ballet flats that poked out from her flowing black trousers. She was short and slight, only just five feet tall, but she seemed to fill the room when she walked in. Her black hair was proudly streaked with grey strands woven into her braids, the only sign that she was in her fifties: her skin was clear and wrinkle-free except when she smiled at her new class, showing off her teeth.

“Hey guys!” She waved, her fingers adorned with so many rings that it was impossible to tell if one was a wedding ring. “God, look alive. It’s only the first day.” She dropped into her chair and crossed her legs, bouncing her heel against her calf, her hands clasped over her stomach. “Don’t tell me I’ve been lumped with a bunch of the droopies?” She cast her eyes around the room, raising her eyebrows to challenge them before she looked up at the clock. “Ok, no time like the present. Might as well check you’re all here.”

She leant back in her seat and opened the register out on her lap, calling out ten names. Only nine responded. She looked up. “No Mawar?” she asked, looking around. “Mawar Talim? Any of you guys know where sh- wait, is that a girl or a boy?”

“No idea, Miss. They must be new,” said one of the boys across the other side of the room. Lucas itched to know now that the teacher had raised the question. She scooted her chair back and opened up her browser, typing in the name and clicking on a link that told her the name was female.

“Alright, so we’re only missing Mawar,” she said, “and when she gets here, we’ll have an even ten. Perfect.” She clicked her pen a couple of times and sifted through the papers in her folder. “Who wants their timetable?”

A murmur of interest went around the room at the mention. Lucas’s heart lurched though he wasn’t sure why when he already knew he and Asher had only chosen one of the same options, and the same with Mika. That meant there would definitely be two classes for which he would be alone. He had been psyching himself up for that all summer, though he still felt a little sick.

Ms Prentiss floated around the room, handing out the timetables to each student without having to ask for their name again. Lucas liked that: she paid attention. She gave him a warm smile when she handed him his slip of paper that he took in a shaky hand.

His chosen subjects were listed at the top: English, history, physics and French. Below, they had been sorted into a timetable with a list of his teachers. They were all ones he had had before for the subjects: Ms Prentiss would be taking him for English, he noticed. He liked that. Instead of the five free periods that most students had, however, he only had four. One of them was taken up by sign language. The school had introduced it as an extra qualification the school could offer, progressing to an actual timetabled lesson in the sixth form.

“Looks good,” Mika said, laying hers out flat. She and Lucas would share English, both slotted into the same classes. Without him, she was taking art, maths and politics. She was missing two of her free periods, which she had sacrificed in order to take an extra A-level in Latin. The school rarely allowed students to take more than four options, even allowing some to take three, but Mika was exceptional in every way.

“Looks horrible,” Asher said, laughing at Mika’s sheet. “Latin? Seriously, Mika? Why? I mean, really, why?”

She beamed. “I like it. It’s interesting.”

“It’s dead,” Lucas said. She shrugged.

“We’ll all be dead one day. Doesn’t mean we don’t matter.”

The words hit harder than she had intended, accidentally lowering the mood.

“Anyway,” Asher slowly said, flattening his timetable on the table, “looks like we’ll be together.” He tapped his sheet: he and Mika were in the same art class.

“And us.” Lucas pointed at physics, relieved that he got to share the subject with Asher. They had been warned that the jump to A-level was difficult but he was prepared, and he had promised to help Asher. That only meant spending more time together: he couldn’t say no to that.

“Pretty perfect,” Mika said. “It all balances out. We’ve each got one class together. That’s kind of nice.” She beamed at Lucas, swaying and knocking his shoulder. “See? I told you it’d all be fine. And we’ve got the nicest form room, too.”

Lucas let out a deep breath. She was right. He smiled. “Thanks, Mika.”

Ms Prentiss gave the class a good fifteen minutes to discuss their schedules, doing her own paperwork as they chatted amongst themselves. Everyone was lost in their own worlds when the door opened and an embarrassed girl slipped into the room with flustered cheeks. She gave the teacher an awkward smile, heading over to the desk to introduce herself and collect her timetable. Lucas watched her with beady eyes. She was remarkably pretty and she held herself with grace as she crossed the room to the empty space next to Mika.

“Excuse me?”

Mika looked up to see short, pretty girl with deep dimples and dark waves held off her face with a black headband. Lucas just looked at her for a moment, still trying to place her face, but he came up empty-handed. She was completely unfamiliar.

“Hi,” Asher said, a smile growing on his lips. There was no doubting that the new girl was attractive. She was absolutely stunning in the most innocent way, her perfect hair falling to her shoulders in loose curls and as far as Lucas could tell, she wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up. If she was, she had perfected the natural look.

“Hi,” she said. “Is this seat taken?” She rested her hand on the back of the empty seat.

“Not at all,” Asher said. Lucas watched him. He seemed to have gone a little gooey eyed. “I’m Asher.” He gave her an awkward wave, a little floored by the girl in front of him. “You must be new, right?”

She nodded, taking the seat and slipping her bag off her shoulder. “I just joined,” she said. “This place is huge. It took me forever to find this classroom.” She paused, her eyes widening. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself! I’m Mawar.” Her name rolled off her tongue like a song.

“Mawar? I haven’t heard that before,” Asher said. Lucas didn’t point out that he had heard the name fifteen minutes ago. She smiled.

“It’s Indonesian,” she said, poking her thumb at her chest: so was she.

“I’m Mika, this is Lucas,” Mika said. Lucas waved at Mawar when he heard his name, giving her the slightest smile. He was a little on edge to be thrust into company but she had a friendly face. “I love your name, that’s so cute!”

“Thank you!” Mawar blushed and adjusted her Alice band. “I’m so nervous, oh my goodness. I don’t know a single person here.” She looked around the room at the six other vaguely disinterested faces. “And I’m so late. This is a terrible start.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Mika said with a flap of her hand. “We’ve only been going over our schedules anyway. You haven’t missed anything. What’re your lessons?” She leant forward a little to see. Lucas did too, peering at the timetable upside down. He recognised a couple of similarities with his own.

“Um…” She pouted, tracing her finger down the sheet. “English, history, art and politics,” she said. “I hate to be a limpet, but please tell me one of you is doing one of those.”

“I’m taking English and history,” Lucas said, lining up his timetable next to hers. There were a couple of the two classes but they were in the same for each and Mawar beamed.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!”

“I’ve got English too,” Mika said, “and politics. Oh, and art too! Asher and I are both in that art class.”

Mawar flattened her hand over her chest, her relief evident on her face. “I picked the right table,” she said with a laugh. “Do you guys mind if I tag along? I’m not interrupting anything, am I? I could just really use some friends here.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” Asher said. Her dimples deepened. “Where did you come from? Which school, I mean,” he hurriedly added. She chuckled.

“Um, Mill Park Academy,” she said. Lucas raised his eyebrows.

“The private school? Why did you move here then?”

She pulled a face, her nose wrinkling. “It’s kind of going downhill a bit,” she said. “There are some major attitude problems there that were just getting a bit too much for me. I mean, most of the problems were in the year below but it was starting to spread and I didn’t want to get caught up in the drama.”

That sounded familiar. Lucas didn’t miss the days when that had been him, finding himself tangled up in the soul-sucking drama that Adler had brought.

“That sucks,” Asher said.

“Yeah,” she mused, idly rolling over the corner of her sheet. Lucas itched to flatten it down but he kept his hands to himself. He hardly knew the girl. “There was this one girl, she was in the year below but she was older than me, and she completely turned on me. She got it into her head that I was some kind of threat just because I was best friends with the guy she liked.” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Sorry, I’m rambling. This is boring.”

Lucas didn’t think so. The more she spoke, the more and more familiar her words sounded. He couldn’t bring himself to ask who she meant, but he was sure he already knew.

*

The day was a strange one, the Lower Sixth existing in their own bubble as the other years went about school as usual. There were talks about how to be a role model for the younger years and what was expected of them as sixth formers; there were a series of talks about what was coming up in the year and what had changed for them since moving up.

Although there was little to do all day, Lucas was exhausted by the time the bell rang at four o’clock. The four of them piled out of the school hall to head to the gate, Mawar and Mika deep in conversation. The new girl had proved herself over the day: she was friendly and seemingly harmless, and Lucas had only grown more convinced that they had a common enemy in Adler. He hadn’t said anything, not wanting to bring it up in front of Asher, but the roster of facts he had collected all added up.

“Have you got a lift?” Mika asked as she headed towards her mother’s car. Mawar checked her phone, her face falling.

“My dad’ll be here in half an hour,” she said. “He’s running late.”

“Come with me.” Mika nodded at the car. “If you want, I can give you the lowdown, help you figure everything out?”

Mawar’s face slowly brightened, a look of wonder in her eyes. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Of course! I’d love to. It must be really hard joining in sixth form.”

“Thanks, Mika. You’re amazing,” she said, beaming. “Bye, guys! I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s been awesome meeting you!”

“Bye!” Asher called, waving her off. Lucas gave her a smile, much more than a lot of people got from him. The two girls left and Asher led Lucas over to the place his mother always parked. She had already texted to warn that she might be a few minutes late, caught up all day sorting out the debris that had been thrown about in the wake of Tori’s death.

“She seems nice,” Lucas said, making an effort to be the first one to comment on the new addition to their group.

“Isn’t she? She’s pretty cool,” he said. Lucas wasn’t if he had picked up on the fact that his ex-girlfriend was the reason Mawar had had to move schools, yet another victim of Adler’s destruction. “She’s pretty.”

“Mmm.” He couldn’t deny that. Even from a purely objective point of view, without the slightest change of any physical attraction, he could appreciate that Mawar was a beautiful young woman with a personality to match her smile. She reminded him of Mika. The two had already hit it off.

Ishaana turned up at quarter past four, rushing off her apologies as the boys clambered into the car. She was a little on edge, talking on the phone through the car’s speakers until they were halfway home, a conversation that had too much legal jargon for either of the boys to understand.

“So sorry about that,” she said, shaking her head when she hung up. “Ash, I take it you explained to Lucas.”

Asher nodded. She did too, as though trying to reassure herself. Asher met her eye in the rear view mirror. “So, what’s happening? What’s going to happen to Sadie?”

“She’s going to live with us,” Ishaana said, certainty in her voice that was more from her determination to give her great niece a loving home rather than actually knowing what would happen. It was too soon to tell for sure, though all signs pointed to yes. She gave her son a smile, one that hid two days of stress with no sleep. “You always wanted a sister. Anyway, how was school?”

“Good,” Asher said. “There’s a new girl in our class and I think she must actually be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

Lucas sighed. Maybe the next couple of years wouldn’t whizz by so fast after all. When he looked up, Ishaana met his gaze with a comforting smile for just a moment before she glanced at her son.

“Just be careful,” she said. “You’ve got a big couple of years coming up. The last thing you need is a pretty girl to distract you.”

Asher held up his hands. “I know, I know. I won’t.”

*

Never mind Mawar, Lucas thought: Sadie was just about the sweetest girl he had ever met. She was eating at the table with Bishop when they got back from school, happily swinging her legs as though it was any other day. She was too young to comprehend what had happened, that she would never see her mother again. All she cared about was eating her pasta. Bishop beamed as he helped her, chatting to her as though she was his own daughter.

If all went to plan, she would be soon.

“Hi, boys,” he said when he spotted them. He was good at putting on a brave face, smiling as he greeted his son just two days after his niece’s senseless death. Ishaana stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders as she bent over him to kiss his forehead before she sat next to Sadie, beaming at the little girl. “How was school?”

“Fine,” Asher said. He smiled at Sadie, giving her a slightly awkward wave when he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do. “We’re gonna head upstairs for a bit.” Saluting his father, he headed up to his bedroom with Lucas in tow, collapsing onto his bed. “This is going to be so weird,” he said with a sigh. “I’m not the baby anymore.”

“You’re nearly seventeen,” Lucas said. “You’re not the baby full stop.”

“You know what I mean.” He rolled his eyes. “How would you feel if your parents had another boy?”

Lucas contemplated the thought for a moment before he nodded. “Good point. But this will be good. For Sadie, anyway. She’s lucky to have your parents.”

Asher nodded and sat up. “I know you’re right. It’s just … it’s weird, and sudden. I can’t get my head around it. Can we just watch a film or something?”

Lucas nodded and dropped his bag to the floor, slipping off his blazer. Asher wasted no time loosening his tie and switching his uniform for a much comfier pair of jogging bottoms and a t-shirt. Within a couple of minutes, he had pulled up his vast film selection on his laptop, the two of them sitting on his bed.

The film was fairly mindless, an easy distraction from real life. For Asher, at least. It distracted him from everything going on downstairs but it only served to make Lucas think more and more about what was going on in his own life: the desire he couldn’t squash; the longing he wished wouldn’t be so painful.

“Asher?” he asked when the film faded to black on two characters in the bedroom.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Asher nodded, chewing on a gummy heart.

“Did you and Adler have sex?” He hated himself for having to ask; he hated that he was sure of the answer.

“What?”

“Did you?”

“No, really, what? I didn’t hear you,” Asher said. “You’re mumbling. You know the rule – when you mumble, I get jumbled. What did you ask?”

Lucas hadn’t expected to have to ask twice. He steeled himself a second time, breathing in deep. “Did you and Adler have sex?” he asked again. Asher pulled a face.

“Do you really want to talk about that?” he asked, taking another sweet out of the bag. A red gummy bear. He bit the head off.

“Yes,” Lucas lied. He didn’t want to know, not really, but he hated living with his own assumptions. “Did you?”

“No,” Asher said. The word came as a shock to Lucas’s ears.

“You didn’t?”

“No, we didn’t,” he said, his eyes cast down. “We did, you know, other stuff but … we didn’t do that.”

“What other stuff?”

Asher grimaced. “Come on, Lucas. You don’t really want to know the answer. I know you don’t.”

“I do.” He didn’t.

He sighed. “Just, you know. Hand stuff … mouth stuff.” He shrugged, wincing.

“So are you still a virgin?”

“Jeez, Lucas! Where’s all this coming from all of a sudden?”

Lucas couldn’t answer that without incriminating himself. He just shrugged instead, mimicking Asher. “I was just wondering,” he said at last. A pathetic response.

“Well, yeah. I am.”

He nodded to himself. He couldn’t express his joy that Adler hadn’t taken that from him, that she hadn’t totally corrupted him.

“You alright, Lucas?” Asher asked, furrowing his brow. He nodded and he smiled, and he meant both.

*

It was half past six before he found himself back at his own house after Dylan offered to drive him back rather than get one of his parents to come all the way out to Rooks Hollow. The two chatted on the drive, which had become easier over the years as Dylan had secured himself as Audrie’s best friend.

When he stepped into the kitchen, he saw Cooper standing over the oven with Audrie next to him, leaning against him. He dwarfed her in every way, a whole foot taller and a fair bit broader than her little frame: when he put his arm around her shoulders, she seemed to disappear when she sank against him. The two had a month to go until university started again and Cooper had spent quite a bit of that hanging around the Song household. There was more to do there than back home in Coalden Valley, after all.

“Hi,” Lucas said, announcing himself. Audrie turned around in Cooper’s arm and grinned at her little brother.

“Hey, Lucas! How was it? Whose class are you in? Who’s in your form?”

“It was good; I’m in Ms Prentiss’s class; I’m with Asher and Mika, and a new girl called Mawar. And six other people.”

“Aw, that’s awesome,” she said, grinning. She lifted up her boyfriend’s arm to hug her brother instead. “Ms Prentiss is so cool. She’s great in sixth form – I had her once and she actually treated us like really people. Like adults.”

“I like her,” he said, wandering over to the hob to see what was in the pan. “She seems fun. What’s this?”

“Chicken a la Cooper,” Cooper said, stirring the pan. “It’s just a chicken nosh, really. A little bit of everything. Peas, onions, mushroom … no sweetcorn.”

Lucas liked that he had remembered his aversion to the food. “It smells really good.”

“Cheers, Lucas. I’m glad you had a good day.”

Cooper and Audrie had been dating for seven months now and their relationship had been out in the open for five months – ever since a few days Lucas had walked in on the two of them. It wasn’t a long time, but he had slipped himself into Song life with ease. Thanks to nearly two years as Audrie’s friend before they had taken it a step further, and countless nights in her room while she had Skyped her family, he had even picked up on the odd bit of sign language. Ever since making their relationship official, he had made a concerted effort to be able to communicate with Charlotte.

She wandered into the room, tired after her first day of school, and moved her hand from her neck down to her stomach with a pout on her lips. She was hungry, an hour after she usually ate.

“Nearly ready,” Cooper said, draping his right hand over his left before touching his fingers to his lips. Although the sign literally meant the evening meal, it was one they had come to use to signal to Charlotte that it was almost time to eat.

“Every time you sign,” Audrie murmured, sidling closer to him, “I think I fall in love with you a little bit more.”

Cooper bent down to kiss her and when they pulled apart, he signed that he loved her. She swooned, enveloping herself in his arms. He gave the best hugs, soft and strong.

“Get a room,” Lucas said.

“We’re in one,” Audrie retorted.

“Get your own room.”

A few months ago, that would have been impossible but at the start of summer, Audrie and Cooper had set to work sorting through the attic and clearing it out. After a week’s solid and determined work, they had transformed it into a cosy bedroom for Audrie, her own space for the first time in three years. It made it a little less awkward for Cooper to stay over, too: the couple of times that he had before then, he had ended up sleeping on the sofa in the den. That had tickled Lucas once he had stopped feeling so disgusted.

As the entire family plus Cooper sat down to eat, Sarah gazed around the table for a moment before she took her seat.

“I can’t believe all my children are at school,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can only say that for one more year. That’s crazy.”

While Charlotte had only just started school, Audrie was about to begin her final year of university. Time was whizzing by.

“Maybe I’ll do a master’s,” Audrie said. “And a PhD. I’ll be a permanent student until I’m ready for real life to start.”

“You should have done architecture, darling,” Truman said with a laugh. “You’d have another four years to go!”

Audrie grimaced. “Maybe I’m looking forward to finishing, actually,” she said. The thought of not even being a third of the way done with her degree was a depressing one.

“I can’t believe that,” Sarah said. “Can you believe our daughter’s an adult?”

Truman shook his head. “Unbelievable. I’m not ready for you to grow up, peanut.”

Liliana perked up, tearing herself away from the boiled potatoes that Cooper had made just for her, the rest of the family having rice with their nosh. “Have another baby!” she cried out as though it was the best idea she had ever had. Her mother scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, shaking her head as she sipped her wine. “Don’t you think I’ve got my hands full enough with you lot?” She held her glass in both hands, her elbows resting on the table as she surveyed her family. She still couldn’t believe her luck, a decade after she and her husband had married. They had celebrated their tenth anniversary a couple of weeks ago, Sarah’s parents keeping an eye on the things while they had put life on pause to spend a few days of luxury in Scotland.

“Have a baby when Audrie moves out,” Liliana said. She was always begging for more siblings, unaware of the strain that would put on her parents and the family’s finances.

“I don’t think so, honey,” Sarah said.

“You know, Mum was my age when she had Lucas,” Audrie said, tearing a piece of bread in half. “I could have a four-month-old baby by now.”

Truman glanced at her. “I hope that’s not a hint, darling.”

Cooper’s eyes momentarily widened, dropping to Audrie who only laughed and scooped up a spoonful of food. Liliana gasped, latching onto the fag ends she picked up.

“Audrie’s having a baby!”

“Oh my God, no I’m not!” she cried out, choking on her mouthful. “I was just pointing that out. I’m not having a baby. Chill, Lils. You’re gonna give Coop a heart attack.” She prodded her boyfriend’s chest with her thumb, though he didn’t seem terribly perturbed by the idea.

Truman shook his head at his family. “No-one’s having any babies,” he said, tutting at Liliana. “Eat your supper, tater. It’s going to go cold and Cooper spent a long time making this for us. It’s delicious by the way, Cooper. Absolutely fabulous.”

Everyone chimed in with their thanks for the meal, a mish-mash of speech and sign that had Cooper bubbling with quiet honour. He was a gentle giant, a man of few words with a knack in the kitchen and pride in everything he did, and he was genuinely touched by the simple words of the family that had accepted him without question. Even Lucas was used to him by now. His love of seeing Audrie so happy overtook the awkwardness he had felt the first few times he had met Cooper after the incident: she was totally besotted with Cooper, the two of them a perfect match despite their differences.

That was all Lucas wanted. For her, and for himself. 

+ – + – +

i hope you enjoyed this chapter! if you didn’t notice, earlier i posted a character guide in “behind the screens” with detailed bios of each main character, who they’re related to (family friends, all sorts) and how. check it out if you find yourself a bit baffled sometimes! 

also, welcome to sadie and mawar!