Everything changed when you walked up those stairs. Grey walls came alive with colour and the peeling plaster was transformed into the ragged bark of withered trees. Knuckles had turned the whole first floor of his house into a forest filled to bursting with animals big and small. It was intricate. I could pick out each individual vein in every tiny leaf, and the deer that frolicked in a glade were photorealistic to a jaw-dropping extent. Where Matt had created pure emotion and swirling vortexes of beauty, Knuckles had painted fine art. He must have researched the delicate anatomy of every breed of butterfly that fluttered around my head and the beetles that scurried where once there was carpet. I turned a corner and came face to face with a vast grey wolf – snarling so viciously that I jumped back in alarm. Knuckles chuckled behind my shoulder and I burned red.

"I called him Jake," he said, running a finger fondly over the crest of the paintwork. "That was how he would have liked to be remembered – strong. A lone wolf howling at the moon. Everything he wasn't really, but it's who you try to be that matters."

I nodded, a tinge of sadness welling in my throat. "Have you named them all?"

"Yes and no. It takes hours to paint each one properly and I usually do more than one coat, so while I'm working on a particular animal I'll give it a personality and a name and stuff, but I sure as hell don't remember them all. My favourites have names though. Like the lion in my room – come on, I'll show you. Quick, before the others catch up with us."

I followed him through a low doorway and into an African Savannah. Sweeping dunes of pale sand lined the walls and the sky was a shimmering blue. Pride of place above Knuckles' bed towered a lion, but he wasn't in the typical pose of a roar or a rear. He lay, resting his head on his forepaws, with an absolute and irrevocable wisdom in his giant, indicolite blue eyes.

"Phil." I whispered.

His fur was soft and so pale it was almost white. Warm, kind and loving; the shaggy mane fell over the headboard of his bed where the paws rested either side of his pillow. Knuckles slept in Phil's arms, still, after all this time.

"Always." Said Knuckles, his voice hoarse.

I stood for a moment, staring at the mighty lion with Phil's eyes.

"He is a lion," Knuckles insisted after a moment. "If you can't see that then you're not fit to be his boyfriend. He's just so fucking brave, like, he didn't think twice about breaking into Oak Tree to see Ellie because he has this utterly unquenchable need to do good – he just doesn't see another option, the coward's choice. I was fucking terrified and I know you were too. You weren't the only one clinging on to him - not physically, obviously. He was the only thing holding us together and keeping us going that night, and it's always the same with him. He's selfless and sweet and innocent but he's not. He's strong. In ways you just don't see if you only ever look with your eyes."

We were silent for another moment, still staring side by side.

"He is a lion," I agreed. "He's the real king of the jungle, because he's just better than everyone else I guess. What am I, do you think?"

Knuckles turned guiltily to me. "I actually did paint you a while back. Twice actually. Er..."

"Can I see?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I guess." Knuckles said reluctantly. "You're in my mum's old room – I couldn't bear having you in here with Phil."

We backed out of the small room and past Matt and Phil – completely oblivious to us at either ends of the narrow hall, absorbed in the paintwork. This next room was a rainforest filled with lush green and deep velvet – dripping with moisture.

"My mum liked the rain. She used to go out for long walks and come back soaked to the skin and freezing cold, but it was like she didn't even notice. It was one of those nights she died, and that's when I started painting this room. I don't like rain. It washes away all the evidence."

I spotted a flash of colour as a parrot took flight above my head. By my side a howler monkey swung through the treetops and an anaconda wrapped around my feet.

"That's the Dan I painted after I found out you were with Phil." Knuckles gestured, blushing.

"Ouch." I winced.

It was a spider, thick and hairy with rows of beady black eyes that leered out at me from behind a leaf.

"Because you know, I was pissed with you. I thought you were really weak and pathetic and you didn't deserve him. Like spiders catch their shit in webs – they don't ever actually fight or confront because they're cowards. I gave you some credit though, it's pretty smart what they do and even when I hated you I appreciated your intelligence. Like with Shakespeare and law and shit. Anyway. This one I painted after you came to my house that time when you honestly thought I was going to kill you and I don't know, I guess you proved that you weren't a complete pussy. You wouldn't stand up for yourself but you would for someone you loved, and I respected that so I was forced to rethink you. Anyway."

It was about four feet high with long, spindly legs that bound through the undergrowth. Its face resembled that of a fox; with orange fur and a long, pointed snout. The eyes were large and brown, with a fleetingness about them. I wasn't sure what to make of it. It was kind of cute.

"It's a maned wolf," Knuckles shrugged. "They're agile and good hunters, but they're not aggressive. They don't like conflict and they're pretty sly, but they're fiercely protective over their young. They're the only wolves that don't often live in packs and you're pretty introverted. They're smart though. Pretty dance-y I guess too. That's about where the similarities end though, I mean I don't often try and recreate someone exactly in animal form. I just want at least one of every animal ever in this house. Then I can move out. I can leave this all behind, and it'll be painted over, and I'll have a proper stab at life some place better. When I've got some money and maybe even a family. I'd like that."

"You'll do it. Things are going to be okay for you now, it's all over. I swear, you're going to have an amazing life." I wasn't sure what made me say it, but these were words that came from somewhere else, and words I was absolutely sure of.

*

We visited Ellie three times a week, and the health workers said that our visits were speeding along her recovery more quickly than they'd ever have hoped. After a long, hazy summer, with two weeks at Phil's parents' house in Florida, we returned to Bradfield College for our second year of sixth form. We managed to get two twin rooms next door to one another so at last we could sleep without fear of rolling off one bed and ending up in a threesome. Chris was nearly thrown out of college when he returned home drunk after PJ's 18th birthday and decided that what they really needed was a door between the two bedrooms – as to walk out into the corridor for two metres was really far too inconvenient. But the hole in the wall was mended, as was the caretaker's pride when Chris turned up outside his lodge with a large bouquet of apology roses.

It was spring; blossom was in the trees and daffodils and crocuses littered the forest floor. The last browns of winter were slipping away under the blanket of lush, warm greens and yellows. Birdsong filled the trees and the sun was warm without stifling. Phil, Chris, PJ and I walked together through the swaying trees. PJ and Phil had come to draw, while Chris and I were filming. Between us we carried an assortment of awkwardly shaped lumps and bags – easels, tripods, canvases and camera lenses. PJ lugged a wooden box of paints and brushes over one shoulder while Chris had an unnecessarily large reflector balanced ridiculously on his head. We walked easily, in no rush, chattering comfortably. The sunlight danced and the birds sang.

The four of us settled in a sunny glade, planting four pairs of identical black skinny jeans on dew-damp grass and settling down to unpack. I lay back, staring up at the gold speckled canopy above my head. Here and there the sky shone through in touches of blue and white. The leaves fluttered in the morning breeze.

It was hard to think that just a few months ago I'd been terrified for my life, caught up in the drugs gang murder disaster of nightmares. Here, amongst the trees, it seemed like none of that could possibly exist in this beautiful world. But it did. There were grimy streets and faceless tower blocks that ploughed through beautiful glades like this one. There were people tormented by drugs and other people and even their own minds. And the tormentors had their own torments. A small sparrow landed on a branch above my head and I wondered sadly if it had ever witnessed a rape or a murder. If it had seen suffering and pain. And of course it had, the world is full of it – maybe that small bird had lost a mate or a child, and maybe it had starved through the winter.

But there is hope, and there is more good in this world than bad. The proof of it was right here around me, in three shining, and beautiful souls. Phil's eyes scrunched up in adorable concentration as he sketched the delicate insides of a bud that was just beginning to open. PJ splashing blue paint in swirling spirals over a white canvas. Chris using a collection of branches and vines to pull together some sort of makeshift camera rig. These were three people that cared. They believed in beauty – they were creating it right now – and they believed in goodness, and so did I. You can find good in everyone. Even the darkest of souls have a spark of white deep down, like a little fire of hope burning bright and yellow and waiting only to be kindled. Most of the time it's the world that quashes the flames until there's barely a spark left. That's what happened to Ellie; darkness filled her life with draft after draft of chill wind that sent her flame flickering and almost dying. But there were people that cared. That came along to shelter her flame from the wind that battered it, and fuelled it with happy moments and positivity to slowly coax it back into life. It wasn't always easy, her memories were dark enough to battle the light they'd brought, but they were getting there. And we were helping.

The pain that you feel when you witness suffering isn't enough, it's the humanity that makes you reach out. It doesn't have to be huge - there's too much suffering in the world for one person to cure it all. Offering a tissue to someone struggling red faced to hide a cold in the middle of lessons. Helping a mother with a hundred bags of shopping and crying kids hanging off her arms struggle a push chair up a flight of stairs. A word of kindness to the child with downcast eyes or trembling hands. It may not seem like much, but a little boost may be all it takes to lift someone out of the grasps of suffering and give them the strength to go on fighting. A word of kindness or a smile. PJ smiled at Chris when he fell ungainly out of a tree with a thump. I smiled at PJ when he splashed blue paint all over Phil's jeans and tried hurriedly to clean it off before Phil noticed. Chris smiled at the dot of blue paint on PJ's oblivious nose. And Phil smiled at me as he lay down beside me to kiss me.

I've changed a lot in the past year. I'm braver for one thing, it's far too easy to just think that someone else will fix it. That you're not skilled or special enough to make a difference, so there's no point trying. Our world is tiny and insignificant in a huge cosmos of possibilities and no one can change it alone. But we can make a difference. I made a difference. I forced myself to be brave, to do the right thing, even though it terrified me. Even though it involved a huge, gaping black unknown of a world I didn't belong in. But I did, and because of it I've seen some incredible things and met incredible people and I like to think I'm a better person now because of it. I've made my share of mistakes, and I'm sure I'll make plenty more. But I have Phil at my side. I have friends I would die for and a world I'd give my everything to, because no one is ever forgotten. The earth remembers us, and even when the sun expands and swallows it whole the stars will remember the wishes we made from our bedsides late at night when we didn't think anyone was listening.

You can live your life dancing. Like I used to, following the choreography of those who came before. Dancing with society, just a small part of the rhythm of the world. Or you can cut the cord and dance your own path through life. One that makes you happy, even if it doesn't seem to be the dance that everyone else is doing. We have the power to change our own world and the worlds of the people around us. It doesn't take much.

My name is Dan, and I am Human.