"PHIL!" I screamed.

PJ and Chris spun round – eyes wide.

People were yelling. I could hear the pounding of running feet; faint and muffled, as if coming from far away. All I could see were the backs of Chris and PJ's heads as they crouched over Phil's motionless figure.

A teacher came running, her heels clattering on the stones.

"WAS IT A GUNSHOT?!" She screamed. "IS HE HIT?!"

"No, it's okay miss." PJ was saying.

I couldn't focus on his words, my head was spinning.

"He's just fainted."

Fainted.

My head flooded with relief and I collapsed at the knees, burying my head in my arms.

"I fucking hate you, Phil." I whispered.

I could hear commotion out the window: the sounds of people simultaneously running towards and away from the forest. Soon, police sirens wailed in the distance.

It sounded like they were trying to cordon off the whole forest before sending in a search party. I didn't envy them. The trees were dark and sinister even when there weren't gunshots flying.

Voices wafted down the corridor and I pulled myself up off the floor to open the door. PJ and Chris were supporting Phil between them and I darted forwards to help them, whispering his name into his hair. As my lips brushed his earlobe, he stirred.

"Dan." He sighed.

"It's okay Phil, I'm here. It's okay." I tried to wrap my arms around him as we shuffled. "It's okay." I repeated helplessly.

We lifted him into bed and PJ went to grab a glass of water while I drew circles on Phil's hand with my finger. Chris was watching the action unfold out of the window.

"One of us should go find out what's going on." He murmured.

"I'll go. I need to tell them what I saw." I muttered, giving Phil's hand a quick squeeze and pecking him on the cheek. "They'll look after you. You'll be fine, I'll be back in five minutes I promise."

Phil nodded glumly, a thin sheen of sweat covered his skin and he was pale and trembling.

PJ looked up sharply at me. "What did you see?"

But I just shook my head and got up to go. "Don't you dare leave his side until I'm back." I said.

PJ nodded, pressing a wet flannel against Phil's forehead. "Of course."

*

Outside, turmoil reigned. The college was in a state of upheaval – teachers were running and yelling and trying to call order, some pushing students backwards while others pulled them forwards again to form a barrier around the trees.

I slipped through the jostling crowd towards the sea of hi-vi jackets and black caps, skipping in a quick circle to avoid my Law teacher and ending up face to face with Sergeant Donovan. His strained expression slid off his face as he recognised me, to be replaced with grim resignation.

"So, young Daniel. Fancy seeing you here. I'd be willing to take a guess that you have a statement to give; how convenient that you happened to be in the right place at the right time yet again. We knew it was going to happen of course, after the incident on Saturday, but maybe we should get you on the force seeing as you seem to be far better at predicting the finer details. Or maybe you should go straight past the staff room and into a cosy little cell." He surveyed me shrewdly and I squirmed. I had no idea what he was talking about, but a feeling of dread was running like ice down my spine. "Either way, if you'd like to follow me. Sir."

*

It was getting dark by the time I arrived back at the dorm block. I'd phoned my mum to tell her I wasn't coming home. The grilling from the policemen had left me drained completely and it took every ounce of energy I had left to pull myself up the stairs and into their room.

Phil seemed to be asleep, Chris was on his laptop and PJ perched on the window sill staring out into the night.

"That was way more than five minutes." He hissed at me as I walked in the door. "We've been going crazy, Phil thought-"

I looked over at the bed. Phil wasn't asleep at all; I could see his blue eyes wide and staring at me from under the covers.

"They kept me a while. They thought I knew more than I was saying. I have to go back tomorrow for a proper interrogation." I shuddered at the thought.

Phil let out a low moan, his eyes tortured. "You have nothing to do with this," he whispered. "They can't do that, you're not..." to my horror, thick tears were welling in the corners of his eyes.

I ran forwards, dropping to my knees by the side of the bed and reaching under the covers for his hand. "Phil. Phil, it's okay, I know I'm innocent and they can't prove otherwise. It'll be unpleasant, but I've just got to get through it. Don't worry about me."

Phil sobbed quietly. "Oh God, Dan. You don't understand, I- it doesn't matter now anyway. It's too late. Oh, God." He buried his face in my shirt. I could feel the tears soaking slowly through the fabric as I wrapped my arms around him, and I turned to stare questioningly at PJ.

He shook his head, as mystified as me.

"Phil mate, maybe you should get some sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning, we'll probably have lessons cancelled or something if they find anything."

Phil shuddered visibly, but lay back down, turning to me. "Dan?" He asked pleadingly.

I nodded, slipping into bed beside him fully clothed and wrapping my arms securely around him. He laid his head into the warm nape of my neck, tickling with the flutter of his eyelashes as he closed his eyes. It took all my remaining energy not to spasm violently at the sensation, chucking us both onto the floor.

Chris and PJ talked quietly in the dim light of the desk lamp as Phil slept. Eventually, Chris closed his laptop and joined PJ on the windowsill, watching the tiny pinpricks of light moving about in the grounds below. PJ sat with his legs bent up on the ledge leaning against the wall, and Chris lay against him, his head on PJ's chest, his skinny body cradled between PJ's legs. PJ played with Chris's tussled, messy hair, and the low murmur of their voices filled the night air with a calm melody.

I watched their silhouettes in the window, purple twilight streaming around them. I watched the way PJ twirled Chris's hair between his fingers. I watched the rise and fall of Chris's chest as he breathed in and out, perfectly in time with PJ's. I gazed at the glittering reflection of their eyes in the black glass and I wondered.

I wondered how it was possible to be homophobic. I wondered how it was possible to see past their blinding love to anything else. I wondered how it was possible not to love them both, and love their love for each other all the more.

"What do you think will happen, tomorrow, with Dan and Phil?" PJ asked softly.

"I don't know. I don't know what Dan saw or what either of them have to do with all this. I don't know what will happen to Dan, or what Phil will do if it's bad. But I do know one thing."

PJ nodded slowly. "Phil would be dead by now if it wasn't for Dan." His eyes were grave, his voice barely a whisper.

"Yeah," Chris sighed. "The only time I've ever seen him like that..."

"That day, on the bridge, after..." PJ trailed off, and Chris sought his hand in the darkness.

Phil stirred at my side as a hot tear splashed down from my face and landed on his cheek.

I kissed it away, shaking, and he settled down in slumber again on my arm.

It took all my self control not to squeeze him tight and never let him go. I wanted to cradle him and rock him back and forwards in my arm and tell him it was all okay. I didn't know what they were talking about. But it hurt so much.

He wasn't fine. He wasn't fine at all. But now I was here, and I was going to make it all okay.

PJ and Chris were still cuddling in the window and I was suddenly acutely aware of the way in which Chris was planting soft kisses up the inside of PJ's thigh. I focused very hard on being asleep, and eventually dozed off.

*

I woke from an uneasy sleep and for a moment I wasn't sure what had woken me. Then Phil thrashed furiously against my side with a cry. He was tossing and flailing and moaning softly. I tried to stroke his arm – sweaty and feverishly hot – but the ivory skin contracted out of my grasp. I was clinging to the headboard to keep myself on the bed. He let out a soft cry, high and pitiful, that struck me somewhere deep inside like a knife. I couldn't take it, I started trying to wake him – shaking his shoulders gently and calling his name.

"No," he moaned, "Please no, mum! I'm so sorry."

I was kissing his lips urgently in an effort to quiet him and smother the wails of pain that shook my heart in my ribcage.

"It's not his fault, it's mine, please. Don't' hurt him. Don't hurt Dan. I'm the one you should hurt. It's all my fault. Oh, God. No. Don't tell them. They can't know. Please save them." His voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper now, and he was frozen rigid on the bed trembling violently.

I continued my tirade of helpless murmurs, no more successful at soothing him than my caress.

"They're dead. They're both dead. His eyes. Oh God his eyes. You can tell by the eyes. Why am I not dead? Why is he dead? It wasn't his fault. It's my fault. It's all my fault. Mum, Dad, Dan, Jamie. I'm so sorry. Jamie. Dan. Please don't leave me Dan. Please. Help me."

"It's okay, I'm here, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, it's okay I'll help you. I've got you it's okay." I whispered desperately, clinging onto him. I wanted to cover him and wrap myself around him and keep him safe. But I wasn't big enough. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't good enough.

Slowly, his cries subsided into whimpers, his whimpers into quiet weeping. I held him close, but it wasn't close enough. I dabbed gently at his eyes with my shirt, kissing away the cold traces of tears that ran down his cheek as if I could kiss away the demons that tortured him too.

Eventually, he lay quiet. Paler, defeated. He looked drained and gaunt. Limp and lifeless if not for the slight rise and fall of his chest.

I turned my head to the other beds, suddenly remembering we weren't alone. Chris's bed was empty, instead he lay and a deep and undisturbed slumber across PJ's bare chest. I shook my head disbelievingly. How had they not heard all that?

But then again, judging by the clothes scattered across the floor, I'd slept through quite a lot too.

I turned back to Phil with a sigh. There was so much I didn't know about him. I'd thought it would be so easy, so perfect. I thought you just got a relationship and then your life was suddenly great and happy and all your problems were solved. Turns out it just presents a whole lot more, and suddenly you've got someone else's problems too, which for some stupid reason you care about more even than your own.

I trailed my fingers gently across Phil's forehead. I wondered what monsters capered behind the cage of bone.

Across the room, PJ and Chris looked like a couple from a movie. They were peaceful, they slept with smiles on their faces. And then I looked down at Phil. Pale and clammy, still shivering every now and then. And then there was me. The ballerina. We'd only got together because I'd had a total breakdown. I wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for my incapability to deal with bullies and my pathetic, needy helplessness.

It seemed we just took turns in comforting each other. In trying to make it a little bit more okay in our messed up lives.

Maybe that was us. Maybe that was all we'd ever be.

Not everyone gets their happily ever after.