7.30. The alarm rings. I switch it off and lie, staring at the ceiling, kidding myself that because I turned it off, somehow time reverses itself, and I can stay here, where I’m warm and comfortable. My door opens and my mother bustles in, opening the curtains and switching on my bedside light as I roll over onto my side, pretending I’m still asleep.

‘Rise and shine,’ she says overly enthusiastically, her cheerfulness painful in my sleepy state. She hurries out of the room to wake up Charlie and James, and I push back the covers and stumble sleepily to the bathroom. I turn the shower temperature up to high and sit down, my head against the wall, the warm water enveloping me like a blanket. I close my eyes, and drift into a dozing state, my eyes too heavy to lift, as I try to remember my dream.

Banging on the door wakes me up as Charlie hammers on the door. ‘Come on, I need a shower too! Hurry up!’

I turn off the water and step out of the shower, grabbing a towel. I wrench the door open glare at him.

‘Shower’s free,’ I say sarcastically.

He groans. His eyes are red with heavy bags under them from lack of sleep and he’s clutching his head in a poor attempt to make his hangover pain subside. I stalk past Charlie, back into my room. I close the door and pull on my uniform.

After doing up my tie, I walk downstairs, past the living room where James is already in front of the television, eating his cereal whilst watching early morning cartoons. I walk into the kitchen and start to pack my lunch for the day, fruit, yoghurt, sandwiches; same old, normal, everyday food. I take an apple from the fridge that I say I’ll eat on the way, but put it in my bag to be forgotten.

When Charlie comes down stairs, irritated with me for being in the shower for so long, we walk to the bus stop, and all sit separately; Charlie with the rest of his year, me with a friend, and James on his own. We chat about mundane rubbish, television, music, Facebook. She tells me about some guy from some club, a similar story to what she tells me every Monday, only it is a lot less interesting each time. I nod and laugh in the right places.

We reach school and get off the bus, James walking quickly away to his classroom, Charlie and I taking different routes to the same building. We reach the common room, and I sit with my year, he with his.

I sit with my group of friends. We’re all in the same tutor group, I have lessons with some of them, and we go out together all the time. They’re talking animatedly about something I haven’t caught the gist of yet.

‘Hi,’ they say as I sit down, and go back to their conversation. I wait for a good moment to bring up my suggestion for a summer holiday, something we’ve been talking about it for a while. When there’s a lull I say to Fran, whose sitting next to me, ‘So I’ve been thinking about what we’re going to do for the summer holiday.’

‘Oh, Lou,’ she says, the awkwardness apparent in her voice. ‘I’m so sorry. We’ve booked something already.’

‘Have you?’ I ask, amazed. ‘Well, where are we going then?’

‘Well, us six are going to go to Greece together,’ she says, and the others picked up on our conversation and promptly adopted apologetic faces. ‘As you never said anything about coming with us we assumed you had something organised with your drama friends.’

‘Oh, well,’ I say slowly, shocked and hurt. ‘No, I thought we were all going to go together.’

‘It’s just hard to get a deal for seven people,’ says Gloria, joining in. ‘And we all agreed on a place to go and what we want to do.’

‘Oh ok, well we can all go together some other time, later on in the summer maybe,’ I say, in a miserable attempt to be cheerful.

‘Well, the thing is,’ says Fran, ‘this holiday is going to be quite expensive, its three weeks long, and it’s the only time that we’re all free. Jess and Holly are working most of the summer and the rest of us are going places with family as well, so there’s no other suitable time.’

‘Right,’ I say, nodding. ‘Oh, okay. That’s fine.’

‘Are you okay?’ Jess asks. ‘We didn’t mean to leave you out of the loop, we just assumed, because you never asked us about it, that you’d made other plans.’

I nod, trying not to blink. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ The bell rings, I can escape. ‘I’ll see you guys later.’

I walk to my first lesson, feeling self pity and anger well up inside me as I walk away from them and can collect my thoughts. I had told them about my plans for the holiday; we’d talked about it altogether. I hadn’t known how to make my intentions clearer without seeming over eager and desperate to go with them. I was already the odd one out. In a group of seven, someone always is separated. When we catch a bus together, I’m the one who sits alone, turning around and laughing with the others to try to be included in their conversation. What could I have said without appearing too forward?

In drama between the exercises and scenarios we’re supposed to act out everyone keeps talking about an exciting charity trip to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, a trip I had loved the look of but couldn’t afford. My parents had leant me so much money that everything I earned from my lousy minimum wage job went to them. Every opportunity that came up I had to make some excuse to get out of. Expensive trips to London with my friends weren’t possible, visiting my cousins for the weekend was far too much money; besides, I had to work, endless parties I said clashed with work were out of the question. Everyone seemed to want me to spend more money, on new clothes, on better shoes, on a nice meal together, on this charity climb. Apparently it was heavily discounted, but no matter how much the organisation paid for, I couldn’t afford it.

The bell ring for break and I leave with a drama friend, who continues the hyping up the Kilimanjaro trip to make me want to go. ‘My parents are paying for it,’ she says happily. ‘I told them about it and I was sure they’d make me pay for it myself but as its for charity they said they’ll pay, and my mum thinks it’s a good idea because I’m so fat it’ll help.’

I protest at once against this, and glance at her. She’s at least two dress sizes smaller than me, and is gorgeous. I imagine what my parents would say if I suggested going to Kenya to lose weight, and grimace.

As we walk back to the common room we pass a group of kids who look a couple of years younger us. Most of them were crowded around this one boy, who was speaking about another boy they knew. As I walk past I hear him saying, ‘Oh my god that little cunt James Cooper is so fucking annoying! He is so weird, and he has no friends. Every time I see him I want to punch his fucking face in.’

Anger boils inside of me, and I turn around and push through the group, and grab the boy who is speaking.

‘Look you little shit,’ I hiss in his face. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, saying stuff like that about my little brother? If I ever hear you saying anything like that about his again I’ll rip your fucking bollocks off, okay?’

He nods, eyes wide. I drop him and walk away, but hear them sniggering behind my back. I walk on, ignoring them, clenching my fingers in anger. Yes James is weird, but he’s also harmless, and is one of the nicest boys in his year. He rarely says a bad word about anyone. My eyes sting as I think of how unfair it is.

At break time I sit with Fran, Gloria and the others, at the edge of the group, listening in. They’re quoting from a new film I haven’t seen yet. I sit there, not saying anything until Holly says miserably, ‘Oh, I haven’t seen it yet, I feel so left out.’

‘Hey Holly, why don’t we go and see it together?’ I suggest. ‘I haven’t seen it either.’

Laura quickly grabs Holly’s attention, and I sigh, and went to the computer room. I walk in and see Charlie in there with some of his friends. He ignores me as usual, and I walk up to him with folded arms.

‘Hi,’ I say, and he looks up at me, finally admitting that I’m here.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘What do you want?’

‘I heard some boys talking about James,’ I say, trying to get him involved.

‘What were they saying?’ he asks, not that interested.

‘Stuff like him being a cunt and wanting to punch his face in,’ I say. He shrugs, and I put a hand on my hip. ‘Doesn’t that bother you?’

‘Well who was it?’

‘I don’t know his name, I could point him out to you but I don’t know who he is,’ I admit.

‘So what do you want me to do about it?’ he asks, irritated.

‘Find him and put a stop to it,’ I say, my voice getting louder as I get more impatient with him.

‘I can’t if I don’t know who he is,’ says Charlie, getting angry. ‘Look, go away and leave me alone.’

I turn and walk away, and sit at a computer with my back to him, fuming. I check my emails, and log off, not having received anything interesting. I get up and walk out of the room, avoiding looking at my older brother.

I go to my next couple of lectures in a state of numbness, writing down notes and listening, but not giving anything my full attention. I respond only when I am asked directly, and if not I keep my head down, trying to forget about everything.

At lunchtime I walk with Fran to a delicatessen on the next street, and see Charlie and his friends walking ahead of us. I slow down, not wanting to catch up with him, and am glad to see them head up another road, as we walk down to the shop. Fran takes a while choosing, asking if I’m going to have anything. I shake my head, knowing that I shouldn’t indulge in the delicious pies, or pastry twists, or the cakes and biscuits lining the walls.

She gets her lunch and we head back to school, and I can see Charlie and his friends coming out of a Spar shop, with a couple of carrier bags full of glass bottles. I roll my eyes, knowing that they’ll be going out drinking tonight, again.

We enter the school grounds again and head towards the common room. A large gang of kids further away catches my attention. They’re standing in a circle tight circle so I can’t see what’s going on inside, but the jeering and malicious laughter catches makes me feel I should investigate. I’ve seen people being bullied before, and always felt the need to intervene and stop what was happening.

I run towards the group and push through towards the centre, and my eyes widen in shock as I see the boy I’d threatened earlier bending over, holding James by his shirt. James is lying on the ground, his face a bloody mess, and the boy is holding him up, preparing to punch him.

‘Hey! Get off him!’ I shout over the uproar, running in and pushing the boy to the side. ‘Leave him alone.’

My threat surfaces in my mind, and I turn to the boy, but see someone else run past me and grab him. Charlie has seen what’s going on, and slams the boy against the wall of the nearest building and punches him in the face. The boy shouts in pain, but Charlie hits him again, this time in the gut. The boy doubles over, but Charlie pulls him upright, and lifts him off the floor, so that the boy is eye level with him.

‘Don’t you ever lay a hand on my brother again,’ says Charlie murderously. ‘If I ever find out that you have said anything to or about him, or so much as touched him again, I will find you, and make you regret it. Do you understand me?’

The boy nods, his eyes wide with terror. Charlie lets go him and he curls up on the floor. Charlie walks away from him towards where I stand holding James, tipping his head forwards so the blood from his nose drips onto his shirt and not down his throat. Charlie motions for us to follow him and we do, walking behind him to the nearest toilet. A couple of boys are inside, but Charlie shouts at them to get out, and they run away. I grab a wad of toilet paper from the holder in a cubile, and run it under cold water, and start to wipe the blood off of James’ face.

‘Why did he hit you?’ asks Charlie, standing back, gripping the sink for support. I can see him trembling with anger, and know he’d love any excuse to go back and continue to beat the crap out of that kid.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ says James, looking away from Charlie.

‘Who was he?’ I ask, throwing the bloody wad away and getting a fresh one to clean him with.’

‘Jack Dawlish,’ says James, and he holds out his hand to take the wad from me. He wipes his own face, as I stand back, leaning against the cubicle frame.

‘Why did he hit you?’ Charlie says again, more adamant for him to explain.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ says James again, annoyed.

‘Well you can’t go back to class looking like that, otherwise you’ll have to explain it to a teacher,’ I say. ‘If you want to go home we’ll tell them that you’re feeling sick and take you home. I don’t have any lessons this afternoon.’

‘Me neither,’ says Charlie, folding his arms. ‘Lou, go and tell the receptionist that he’s feeling ill and needs to go home.’

I wash the remaining blood from my hands and leave the bathroom, hurrying to the school reception. I knock, and the receptionist calls me in.

‘Hi,’ I say. ‘My little brother is feeling really unwell, he’s felt bad all day but now he’s gotten worse. Would it be okay if we took him home?’

‘That’s fine,’ she replies cheerfully. ‘Just write a note for me to put his register and get your mother to write one for him tomorrow.’

‘Thanks,’ I say as she hands me a pen and paper. I scribble and note and leave it with her, then go up the stairs of the main school building to collect James’ things. His bag is lying on one of the desks and I check every locker in the room for his one, and remove his coat when I see it. I hoist his bag over my shoulder and put his coat over my arm, and hurry back down to the bathroom where Charlie and James are still sitting.

‘Here,’ I say, hanging James his things. ‘Come on.’

We walk together to the sixth form common room, and James comes in with us as we get our things. The rest of the sixth form stare at us, the news of our encounter with Jack Dawlish has obviously travelled fast, and the blood on James’ shirt gives him away. I come back with my books and coat and tell him to put on his coat quickly, and shove my books in my bag. I sign myself and Charlie out on the boards, and stand with James as wait for our older brother.

Gloria and Fran hurry over to where we stand. ‘Louise, what happened?’ they ask.

‘We’re taking James home,’ I say. ‘He can’t stay here today.’

‘You know the teachers are going to take one look at Jack and start asking questions,’ says Gloria. ‘If you take James home he can just say that Charlie attacked him.’

‘And I hope that when they come looking for Charlie someone will tell them what actually happened,’ I say, as I see Charlie emerge from the locker room, talking to one of his friends. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Let’s go,’ says Charlie when he sees us, and we walk out of the common room. We leave the school grounds and head towards the bus stop, looking around to make sure that none of our teachers are wandering around the area surrounding the school. We see the bus approaching and Charlie runs to the bus stop, flanging it down and making it wait as James and I catch up. We climb on and sit together at the back, ignoring the other commuters who stare at James in horror. His face still has some traces of blood, which I ignore for now, deciding to wait until we get home and put him in the bath.

We don’t talk much, but we don’t need to. Anything we say is direct and to the point, such as what will we say to dad when he sees us walking in several hours early. We decide its best to just stick to the ‘James isn’t feeling very well’ line, and lapse into silence.

We reach our stop and climb out, walking quickly to the house and letting ourselves in. Dad is sitting at the computer, and glances at the clock when he sees us walk through the door.

‘You’re all back early,’ he says, eyes narrowing.

‘James was feeling ill,’ says Charlie. ‘And Louise and I didn’t have any afternoon lessons.’

‘Really?’ asks Dad, sceptical. ‘What am I paying for if you can just walk out of school whenever you want? Your free periods are supposed to be a time for you to study, not catch an earlier bus home.’

‘We can work here,’ I say, after whispering to James to go and have a bath and wash the rest of the blood off his face. ‘Its fine Dad, our teachers said we could go.’

Dad mutters something as he gets up and walks past us to the kitchen. Charlie and I go upstairs and I knock on the door to the bathroom.

‘James, pass out your uniform, I’ll wash it before mum gets back.’

He opens the door a fraction and throws his shirt and trousers out at me, and I go down to the laundry room and put his shirt in with a pile of whites. I decide the blood on his trousers isn’t that noticeable, so it can be left until later, and go upstairs.

I pass Charlie on the stairs. He has already changed into his gym clothes and has a backpack on with swimming stuff. I let him past and go upstairs and change, then go and turn on the television. After a while James joins me, clean and wearing his pyjamas, dragging his duvet.

‘Good idea,’ I say, and he sits down, covering us both with the duvet. We watch some random cartoons, reruns and general trash for a while. We see Mum’s car pass as she returns back from work and hear her speaking to Dad briefly, and she comes in and runs her hand over James’ forehead.

‘Oh you poor thing,’ she says. ‘Do you want to go up to bed?’

‘I’m not tired,’ says James. ‘I’m just feeling sick.’

‘I’ll go and get you a bucket,’ she says, walking out and returning with a bucket. ‘Do you want anything to drink?’

‘Orange juice please,’ he says, and she gets him that as well, then goes to do some marking.

‘Lou, does my nose look funny to you,’ James asks randomly after a while.

I look at it, and shake my head. ‘Not really, did you think he broke it?’

‘I don’t know,’ he shrugs. ‘Just wondered.’

I leave him in front of the telly and go to do my homework. Charlie comes back as I am getting my books out of my bag.

‘Good gym sesh?’ I ask. He grunts and heads for the bathroom. I shut my door and take my books and pens to my desk, and make a start on the essay that’s due in tomorrow. It gets dark so I turn on my overhead light, and get halfway through until the mum rings the little bell on the hall table for dinner. She’s still ringing it when I get downstairs, and dad gets up from his desk, frowning

‘Alright, they get the message!’ he says, walking past her. She makes an irritated tutting noise and follows him back into the kitchen.

I get a drink and sit down, waiting for the boys. James is still watching the telly and Charlie is probably still in the shower. Dad picks up the pole we use to open our sash windows and bangs it on the kitchen ceiling, over which is the bathroom and next to it, Charlie’s room.

‘Come on!’ he shouts. James comes hurrying in, pouring himself even more orange juice and after a while we hear thunderous footsteps coming down the stairs. Charlie comes in, grabbing a drink and sitting down, and waits until everyone else has taken some food before finishing off the meat. He starts wolfing it down.

‘Slow down!’ says Dad. ‘Jesus, watching you eat is disgusting.’

‘I’m going out in a bit,’ he says. ‘I need to eat quickly.’

‘You’re not going out until you’ve washed up,’ says Mum.

‘Err no, I’ve got to go soon,’ says Charlie.

‘Well I’m sorry,’ says Mum, annoyed. ‘Since I’ve come home I’ve taken out the rubbish and the recycling, put on another load of laundry, done my marking for school and cooked the supper, with no help from anybody,’ here she shoots Dad a contemptuous glance. I look down, concentrating on my dinner. ‘So I’m sorry, Charlie, but you’re going to wait until we’ve all finished and then you can wash up and go after that.’

Charlie glares at her, and continues with his meal in silence. After a couple of minutes of no one saying anything, Mum asks, ‘So, how was everyone’s day?’

‘Fine,’ we mutter together. Unimpressed by this answer, she continues.

‘Louise, did you speak to your friends about going to the house in France?’ she says, causing the pain from earlier in the day to resurface.

‘No,’ I say, taking a drink from my water.

‘Why not?’ she asks, eyes narrowing.

‘Because they’ve already organized a trip in the summer,’ I say, putting my glass down, trying to keep my voice even. ‘Without me.’

‘Oh sweetheart,’ says mum, pouting to show her sympathy with me. ‘Well never mind, forget about them. Is there anyone else you can go with?’

I shrug. ‘Most of my other friends are going to Kenya over the summer.’

‘Well, never mind,’ she says again. ‘We’ve still got our trip booked.’

‘Yeah, when is that?’ asked Charlie, looking up.

‘The 18th to the 26th of August,’ said mum.

Charlie and I look at her angrily. ‘Mum, we told you not to book it that weekend, that’s when we’re going to Reading.’

‘When did you tell me that?’ she asks, her voice rising angrily. ‘I wish y
ou would tell me these things!’

‘We did,’ I say. ‘We said we are going to be away for the August bank holiday because of Reading.’

‘Well I booked the holiday for when your father organised his leave, so don’t get angry with me,’ Mum says, holding up her hands and leaning back.

Dad doesn’t say anything, and Mum looks extremely pissed off. ‘You’ll just have to sell your tickets.’

Charlie and I exchange pissed off glances, and Mum stands up, picking up her plate. ‘Charlie, just go; your father, Louise and James can do the clearing up.’

Charlie gets up and leaves without a word, heading upstairs to get ready. I glare at Mum, who empties her plate into the dog bowl. She puts it in the dishwasher. ‘I’ll have coffee in the living room,’ she says, and walks out of the door.

James still has most of his food left, and is leaning over his chair, playing with the dog. I roll my eyes and clean up my plate, the plate Charlie left, and Dad’s. I tell James to hurry up, and he announces that he doesn’t want anymore, and gets up and scraps his food into the dog bowl. I cram as much as I can into the dishwasher, only to have Mum, who comes back to collect her wine glass, tell me I can’t overfill it. I glare at her, and rearrange everything inside the dishwasher, make James collect any other plates or tumblers lying around the house, and turn it on. I start washing up, making James bring me dirty dishes as I tackle the pile next to the sink. Dad has started making the coffee, and occasionally brings over a dirty pan and drops it into the sink, making the water dirty and disgusting as I’m trying to clean the glasses first. I empty the water, and start again.

‘James!’ I call as the wet dishes pile up, and he gets up from where he was playing with the dog and grabs a dish cloth. As we’re doing this, Charlie comes in, all dressed up with a bag over his shoulder, the contents of which clink together when he moves, and grabs the car keys.

‘I’m staying overnight at Alex’s,’ he says, and shouts goodbye as he walks out of the door. I watch him go, annoyed that I’m doing his job, and wash quickly to try to get it over with. James is dawdling, swinging one of the knives around his head like a Jedi. Dad has finished the coffee, leaves two coffees on the counter, a cappuccino for me, and a black coffee for Mum. He takes his and walks back to the living room.

I sigh, irritated, and finish the washing. I drain the water and wash my hands, then take Mum’s coffee in to the living room.

‘Thank you darling,’ she says, pointing to a mat for me to set it on. ‘Aren’t you good.’

I smile at her, and then go back into the kitchen. James is still messing around, so I shove him and make him hurry up.

‘Why isn’t Dad in here helping?’ he asks, picking up his cloth and finishing the drying.

‘When does he ever help?’ I mutter, putting away the dishes that he has just left on the side, most of them still slightly damp. I remember my half finished essay and leave him to finish it off, telling him to hoover the floor whilst he’s here after seeing a huge clump of black Labrador hair underneath the table. I hurry out, and head upstairs.

I continue my essay, developing my points and looking for quotes on my laptop. I’m just trying to reach a good conclusion when suddenly I hear shouting from downstairs.

‘For once it would be nice if you could just help me!’ I could hear Mum shouting at Dad. ‘Taking out the rubbish and recycling that I leave on the table, not just for the kids to do when they come home from school but also for you. Or hanging out the washing that’s left in the machine that I put on in the morning whilst I’m trying to get the kids ready for school and get ready myself. Or you could help with the cooking, as you haven’t done anything all day.’

I put music on so I can’t hear Dad’s reply, turning it up loudly. I force myself to focus on my essay, and write a terrible, rushed conclusion. I put it away and then grab a book, and sit against the radiator, music blaring, trying to forget about my parents shouting at each other in the room downstairs.

The door opens and James come in. I move over and he sits next to me against the radiator. He’s brought with him a book, and we sit there together, reading and listening to the music, but every time the music changes tracks we hear snatches of the argument downstairs.

This started a year ago when my father stopped drinking. I always had memories of him with a glass of wine or beer in his hand; or next to him on his desk as he worked. When we took out the recycling it was always full of empty cans and bottles from my parents drinking. My friends would see these and think my parents were alcoholics, but I’d never thought of them that way. I knew my parents enjoyed drinking, but it wasn’t as though they needed to. Mum didn’t drink as much as Dad did, but they both drank enough. The only reason we all had laptops was because Charlie and I persuaded Dad one evening after a bottle of wine that it would be a good idea for us to have our own computers. It had worked, my parents were happy it seemed.

But then Dad stopped drinking. He noticeably slimmed down a lot, but he also got a lot quieter. He didn’t speak so much to us, only when necessary, especially to Charlie. When Charlie and I were little we didn’t see very much of him, he was away a lot for long lengths of time for work. When James was born we saw a bit more of him as he gave up his well paid and time consuming job to spend more time with his family. But the job he got afterwards wasn’t that well paid, and he hated it. It made him miserable, especially now that he didn’t have alcohol to help him to forget about it.

A couple of months after this, I’d walked into the study to see my parents sitting together in the conservatory, talking. It looked very serious. They stopped when I came in, and I knew that something was the matter. A couple of days later I was looking for mum around the house but couldn’t find her, and saw the study door was closed, and I could faintly hear both my parents’ voices inside. After this I asked Charlie what he though was going on.

‘Shut up,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t talk about it.’

I knew he knew more than James or I did. I knew Mum was telling him more than she told me, and way more than she told James because Charlie was older, he could take it without getting upset. But as time went by I could tell it was having a bad effect on Charlie. He started drinking a lot more every time he went out, something he’d drink a whole bottle of vodka himself, and either get extremely aggressive or collapse. Once when he was out with friends he fell over and had to have stitches on his face. In addition to the heavy drinking he would push his body to the limits in the daytime, going to the gym, running, cycling around. He told me that he’d sometimes get heart palpitations, and that once he’d even retched slightly and tasted blood in his mouth.

Meanwhile Dad was becoming increasingly distant from Mum. They didn’t talk much anymore, and he’d often talk for long periods on the telephone to good friends of theirs, seeking advice, asking what to do. He did things seemingly deliberately to annoy Mum, buying an expensive new laptop, or car. He went through phases, such as proper coffee, when before instant had always been good enough. He bought a coffee maker, and then another one because it was bigger, and then another one because he wanted a smaller one. So now we have three coffee makers. I went into town with him and we went to a coffee shop to get coffee beans, and he bought loads of them. He’d also have music phases, playing the same CD on repeat, all day, every day for about a week, and then change to another, new band. Enjoying music and coffee wasn’t new, but the patterns of his behaviour changed, becoming more extreme.

This behaviour climaxed a couple of weeks ago when I went into the spare room, searching for the cat, and saw his wash stuff on the windowsill. I opened the wardrobe and his clothes were hanging up in it, and the sheets had been slept in, even though we hadn’t had guests staying in there for a while. Dad had moved into the spare room, away from his bedroom with Mum, at the other end of the house.

After this I’d walked into the kitchen and saw Mum leaning over the kitchen table, apparently reading the television guide, but it was splattered with tears. She was holding the edge of the table for support, and trembling. I walked over to her and put my arms around her, but she straightened up, wiped her eyes and acted as if nothing had happened, even though it was obvious.

I heard that Dad was having counselling sessions, and heard from Charlie that Mum was too. Apparently he’d given up drinking after becoming depressed, and then the realisation the soon Charlie, then I, and then finally James would be leaving home to go to university, and then on to some other job, away from home made him realise that he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. Having children with Mum had given them a common purpose, a reason for staying together. But now that we would be going, it dawned on him that now he didn’t know whether he wanted to stay with Mum anymore. He told her this, and I realised that this was the conversation that I’d walked in on, or heard through the closed door last year.

As James and I sit, reading our books, the music we’re using to block their argument stops. It the end of the album. In the sudden silence I can hear only too clearly the conversation downstairs.

‘I can’t do this anymore Simon,’ we hear Mum say. ‘I don’t want you living here if you don’t want to be here with me. I want you to move out.’

My breath catches in my throat. I glance at James, listening to Dad’s answer: why should he move out, this house is as much his as hers. I stand up and walk to my iPod docking station, changing from albums to playlists, putting on one which is two hundred or so songs long. I press play and sit down next to James again, putting my arm around his shoulders. Its only when my vision blurs that I realise that I have tears running down my cheeks.

It’s now late, and I know I should be going to bed so that I will be awake for school tomorrow.

‘Can I stay here?’ asks James, and I nod. He runs to get into his pyjamas, and I change quickly. I brush my teeth in my room and bring my iPod station to my bedside table. I pause it briefly; the shouting is still going on downstairs, so I play it again. James comes back in and climbs under my duvet. We continue reading, having nothing to say to each other. It’s only when, in a break between songs, I can’t hear anymore shouting that I pause the music. It’s silent downstairs. I go down to get a drink of water, but I stop outside the kitchen, hearing the most heart wrenching sound I’ve ever heard. My Dad crying.

I go back upstairs and climb into my side of the bed, turning out the light. I roll over to my side so that my back was to James, and think about everything that had happened to me today. Rejected by my friends, watched my brother being verbally and physically bullied, knowing my other brother was going to go out and use vodka to try to forget about everything. I didn’t have enough money to join in with the activities that my friends enjoyed, and my lack of funds meant that I often had to dress in old, odd clothes, and never had anything new. The tension between my parents was beginning to effect all of us, and now it had reached a breaking point. Mum couldn’t take it anymore, the rejection she felt, the loneliness of being unable to communicate with the person she was married to because he just wouldn’t respond to her, the emptiness. She felt betrayed and unloved. I can hear her crying, just the other side of the wall my bed leant against, and imagine her lying in the bed she used to share with Dad, staining the pillow with tears.

I think now what it would be like to end this all. Who doesn’t think about killing themselves? I imagine the pain, only for an instant, and then the relief. To not have to worry about this all, to not have to feel the bigger pain that eats away at me every day. I go over the various means to this end: hanging myself would be too terrifying, as would cutting myself, not the attention seeking way across the wrist, but along it. I imagine gripping a knife, holding it over my skin, knowing that I wouldn’t have the nerve to push down. Pills were unreliable, I didn’t know how much to take, and it was always possible for them to pump my stomach.

But, I think, surely this would be better. I imagine waking up in a hospital, my family all there, bearing it together. Then my parents would be happy to see me alive, they’d shout at me together, asking me what I was thinking, questioning why I did it. And we could move on with our lives, as a unit that had been shaken, but was now stronger and closer because of it.

The thing which terrifies me is if, after trying to kill myself, I succeeded. What would happen then? The first thing to cross my mind is Mum crying. Then I can see Dad trying to consul her, but in the end it becoming too much, just another strain on their marriage, and eventually something would have to give and they’d break apart. I saw Charlie spirally into an even more destructive routine of intensive exercise coupled with intensive drinking, and James retreated further inside himself, which would possibly result in even more abuse at school. The knowledge that I might potentially cause this suffering helped me to decide right now that suicide, for me, isn’t an option.

I hear a sniff, and realise that James is crying. I roll over and put my arms around him, giving him a hug.

‘It’s okay,’ I lie. ‘Everything will be okay.’