Fight Or Flight

Chapter 8 - Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)

Chapter 8 - Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)

Something happened over Christmas and New Year and Layla didn't reappear after the holidays. We were only in school for three days, until the weekend came around again. But still she hadn't shown up by the Friday.

And neither had Ed.

I texted her a few times but got no replies. We had been in touch before the holidays, but over New Year I had gone on holiday with my family. We spent a week in the warmth of the Canary Islands.

She didn't appear the next week, either. Ed was back in school on that Monday, so I asked him about Layla.

"She's in a really bad way," he said. "Don't know if she told you, but her Granddad died on New Year's Day. Don't know when she's coming back to school. I faked sickness for a few days last week, so as I could see her."

He looked miserable and walked around the school for the rest of that week as lonely as a condemned man, his head always down to the floor, as he shuffled around the yard and the corridors, his school bag slung across his shoulder, his only companion.

"You should go and speak to Ed," I said to Adam when I saw him a lunch time.

"He'll be alright."

"Yeah, he looks it."

"He does kinda bring a lot of this stuff on to himself, though," he said.

"What d'you mean?"

"Well look at him?"

"What?" I knew what he meant but wanted him to say what he was thinking. What everybody else was thinking, I suppose.

"Well, on own clothes day before Christmas did you see how he was dressed?"

"Layla was dressed in a similar way, and she looked okay."

"D'you reckon?"

"Thought she looked absolutely stunning. I bought her that top!"

"You're just saying that because she's your new bezzy mate," said Adam.

"No, I'm not. She's lovely."

"Yeah, but he wore black nail varnish and had makeup on, though."

"He had a bit of black eyeliner on"

"Bit gay isn't it, though?"

"He isn't gay."

"Yeah, but it looked gay, though."

"Just have a word with him, please. Speak to him. For me."

I had started seeing Adam during the Christmas holidays. He'd bought me a bottle of perfume and a Christmas card before school broke up for the holidays. It was really cute - especially the embarrassment it caused him as he tried to sneak them to me on the last day of term during our final English lesson. As he slowly took them from his bag, and slipped them along the desk to me, with the warning I wasn't to open it until I got home, Mr Mason was stood behind him and whispered over his shoulder, "I'm glad to see my wife's matchmaking is working out so well."

He went so red you could almost make out his glowing embarrassment, even in the darkness of the classroom.

We watched 10 Things I Hate About You. A final lesson of the year treat. Mr Mason also handed out boxes of Mini Heroes chocolates and the school year ended a couple of hours later.

Then, later that night, we had our first date.

Our first kiss was outside the chip shop close to Adam's house. I remember standing in close to him and watching his awkward manoeuvres, as he advanced to embrace me. I remember looking at the Chinese writing decorating the sign above the chip shop, as we kissed, he with his eyes closed. The brush strokes and curves of the Chinese characters, like its ultimate meaning, as incomprehensible to me as the new found feelings emerging from within the pit of my stomach.