When I arrive, Mum is still a wreck. She isn’t the crying mess she was in before – this time it’s replaced with a burning passion to swear.

I hear every variant of every known curse in every known language to humanity for the next thirty minutes.

“I’m going tomorrow and I’m to—” she starts, body going tense again. Her fingers curl around the cushion she’s holding.

“No,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm in contrast to her raging one. “You need to quit the job. That woman was right; you can’t go back there. You’ll never be able to live with yourself.”

Her eyes are full of rage as she looks at me. If the cushion were alive it would be begging for mercy. “Do you know how this feels? This feeling of rage?”

On that last word, she flings the cushion until it hits the opposite wall with a loud smack.

“Enough,” I say, crossing the room and gathering the cushion in my arms. “Stop acting like this. Pull your shit together and just leave!”

Her eyes go wide at my outburst. Then, she sighs loudly.

“Fine,” she murmurs. “Fine.”

***

She lied to me. My own mother lied to me.

I wake up to a cold house devoid of activity. When I check to see if her handbag is on the bannister, I find it gone.

She left for work when she promised me she wouldn’t.

The liar. I glance around the room as though that will give me signs of what to do. But I don’t have the car keys so I can’t drive. And the salon is too far – it would take too long to walk.

I decide to let it go. She’ll come to her senses soon enough and if she doesn’t then I’ll have another go at convincing her when she gets back.

But there’s a fear in me the whole morning. I hate the thought of her going back, working in the same space as Andre, and breathing the same air. It leaves me feeling disgusted and dirty.

I try to use school work to distract me. The work the teachers have been sending by email has been adding up to a lot. I plough through it, ignoring the growling in my stomach and the fear inside at what could happening to Mum.

When I finally take a lunch break, I think about getting out of the house. Glancing at the clock, I realise it’s two-thirty. Mum won’t be home for another few hours at least. And I’m catching up on my schoolwork. Maybe if I went to the tennis courts for a while it’d relieve me of this stress.

My heart warms at the thought of seeing Amias again. I haven’t talked to him since that day he kissed me. I can still remember the feel of him, the softness of his lips, the hardness of his chest as he pulled me closer.

I’ll be gone an hour maximum, I tell myself as I pull my hair into a messy pony at the top of my head. I think about touching up my face with some makeup but then decide against it. I’ll sweat it all off in a minute.

There’s a slight chill as I step outside. Even though it’s summer, I don’t expect it to be such good weather all the time. This is England, after all.
I hurry to the tennis courts, wishing I’d worn something a little bit warmer.

Amias isn’t in the courts like last time. All of them are full anyway so we’d have to wait a while to get a spot. I go round the courts instead until I’m by the bench on the other side, the place where I first saw him.

He’s sitting on the bench, light raincoat wrapped around him, eyes staring broodily at the grassy horizon. I think he’s scanning it, searching for someone, but I can’t be sure.

“Hey,” I say, plopping myself beside him.

He jumps a little, turning. When he realises it’s me, he relaxes but not all the way. I can still see some tension in his shoulders.

“Hi,” he replies but it sounds clipped. Then, “I’d love to chat but you have to go.”

I search his face, his rich brown eyes, and I find everything is hard. “You want me to leave?”

“No,” he says softly and his features soften along with it. “Chandy, I don’t want you to go but you can’t be here.”

“Why?”

He swallows as though debating whether to say whatever is about to come next. “It’s dangerous.”

I stare at him in bewilderment and slight anger.

“No!” I say, indignant. “I’m not leaving you!”

Suddenly, his eyes go wide at someone making their way across the field.

“Go,” he hisses, hands fumbling into mine, pushing me away. When I resist, his voice turns panicky. “I swear, for the love of Tennis and for the sake of you and your loved ones, go!”

That has me scrabbling off the bench. I turn the corner, position myself behind a flower pot. If whatever’s about to happen so dangerous then I want to be close in case he gets hurt.
If someone hurts my Amias I swear I’ll kill them with the racquet on my back.

The figure approaches. From here, I can’t see him clearly as his hood is up, veiling his face. He saunters up to Amias and places himself on the bench beside him, in the same place where I was only a moments before. I wonder if he saw me; I give a slight shudder at the thought. As Amias said, he looks dangerous.

I watch as they converse for a while. Amias’ shoulders never relax.

And then the unidentifiable man unzips his coat. He produces something from his inner pocket. It’s a parcel, taped tightly around the seams. The man glances around him, eyes narrowly missing mine, and hands the parcel to Amias who tucks it in his own pocket.

I reel back, wondering what that was about. It certainly looked suspicious. What could have been in the parcel? Why were they acting so secretly?
My movement must have not been as subtle as I’d hoped because the man turns in my direction.

His eyes bore into mine. I can see his face.

It’s Gabe.

Just like my body, my mind reels in shock. Gabe? What is Kylie’s boyfriend doing here?

Then Gabe turns back to Amias, voice low and it’s obvious he’s asking about me.

Gulping and praying that he didn’t recognise me, I turn from the courts and flee.