Trying for Love

Chapter 20

Like a tree scorched by lightning, its inner burnt to ash with only the rough-barked shell of the trunk remaining, Manny felt empty. As if wrenched too early from a dream, his mind had to fight through fogginess and layers of revolving thoughts to perform the most mundane of tasks. He found eating laborious and conversation pointless, but his desire to be home and alone meant he had become great at pretending.

Wednesday came and went, and Manny didn't go near the library or the old block. Instead finding refuge in the old gym, which was now more or less abandoned in the warmer summer months. He'd never read so much. If Kate or Theo enquired where he'd been, he'd laugh and ask how they hadn't seen him in the library when they had been looking for him. Thankfully, because the exams were nearing, they took his word for it.

So mostly he was ok, only reminded of the knife in his side when it twisted at the sight of Steph stuck to his side. Laughing under the oak tree at a shared joke, his hand holding hers on the table at shared lunches, revising together in the common room; all left Manny with a bitter taste in his mouth. The longing to be the one in those scenarios throbbed like a bleeding wound.

He was able to push all of this aside however, when his computer sounded, notifying him of new mail in his inbox.

Hello Manny,

I am so glad you like the book. It was helpful to me when I was a student but in recent years it has only been collecting dust. Following our conversation at the party I thought it only right to give the book a better home.

I want to invite you to do some work experience at the hospital. It would begin after you've finished your school year, lasting around two weeks. If you'd like to do it, don't hesitate to contact me and I'll fill in all the necessary forms.

I hope your studies are going well. They are difficult, but it will all be worth it.

Good luck in your exams,

Jimmy Silman

The email was all Manny needed to refocus. Only the exams and getting out of Pitton, mattered.

For the next few weeks the only time Manny spent not studying was when he was sleeping, eating with his mother and Mass on Sundays. Even in the shower he'd recite out loud from his textbooks. It felt good to push and flex his mental muscles, to focus on something beyond himself; silently challenging himself to fill the hole that had been left. When his mobile network sent him a text message informing him he was without credit it felt like a balm. Instead of hunting for a fiver to top up the credit he let his phone battery die, dumping it at the bottom of his desk drawer next to the equally lifeless iPod.

When the second week of May arrived, Manny entered the school hall like a boxer at his title fight, assured by all his training and victory within touching distance. For each exam he'd calmly take his seat, position his clear pencil case on the top edge of the desk and fill out his details on the front of the paper in black ink and then wait for the call to begin before flicking the first page back. Every time "pens down" was commanded in the exam hall, a rush of satisfaction would relax his shoulders. With each dismissal he would do his best to slip away quietly, avoiding discussing answers with his classmates, reluctant to risk any doubt dampening his small hope.

Much like a nightmare, Henry found himself emerging from the exam season exhausted and mildly panicked. The only benefit of two weeks of exams had been the solitude it had afforded. An excuse to be alone that even Steph didn't question. Though bile rose in his throat at the memory of the hurt that had slashed across his face in the common room that day, it was Manny whom he searched for at school.