The view from Lex's English class wasn't nearly as good as homeroom. The class was in a different building, and it faced out towards the street instead of inwards to the courtyard. Lex would still rather watch cars go by and people walking their dogs than pay attention to the lesson.

Beyond the school was a residential area. Most of the houses were 80's style townhouses that were wooden or brick – some of them were cladded with both. They were fenced in with yards out the front, and the back he supposed. Family homes, probably three bedrooms at least. Lex imagined that some of the houses still had that busy orange or green carpet that they were so fond of using back then. Maybe they had split level living rooms with steps down into a sunken area where the seating was.

One of his foster homes had been like that. The carpet was green like moss, and shaggy like one of those old English sheepdogs. The couches were the colour of mustard and decorated with hand sewn patchwork cushions. Each bed in that home had a quilt, and the pillowcases had the initials of each child who slept there.

Miss Stacy took care of them. She was an old woman with curly grey hair. It was so course that it stood almost completely upright on top of her head. She always wore a neckful of beads, of all shapes and colours – round ones, square ones, butterflies, and hearts. Lex could still recall the way she smelled, like lavender and freshly baked bread – because she put dried lavender in the drawers with her clothes and she always made sure the children ate as much home cooking as she had the energy to provide.

Lex also remembered being taken away, kicking and screaming. Miss Stacey had terrible arthritis in her fingers. Each knuckle was gnarled like the trunk of an old oak tree. It was painful for her at the best of times, but the cold made it worse. It was the winter after Lex's Fourteenth birthday, that she began to seek alternative methods of pain relief. It was cold on the day they were taken too. They were told to get out of bed and pack their things. It was sudden, chaotic and all he could think to take was his pillowcase.

The last time he ever saw Miss Stacy, she was in handcuffs, arrested for the possession of illegal drugs and child endangerment. With the rest of the children, Lex stood there and sobbed as Miss Stacy placed one of her necklaces over the head of each child. By the time she reached Lex, the eighth and oldest of her children, there was only one necklace left.

Keep it and I'll be with you. That was the last thing she said before she was taken away.

It took months of Lex playing this moment over in his mind, for him to realise that Miss Stacey left that day with a bare neck because she only wore eight necklaces – one for each of her children.

Lex was ripped from the most painful of his private thoughts by the person in front of him thrusting a stack of papers towards him.

"Why're you crying?" The tone was apathetic, and he spoke loudly.

Lex touched his own face, and it was wet. Eyes met his as he looked up – they were judging, frustrated perhaps, that he was interrupting class. His apathetic neighbour continued to shove the pile in his face and the teacher pointed a ruler at him from the front as he stood up.

He was waving the ruler and his mouth was moving as Lex was walking, but he couldn't hear. It sounded like he was underwater. It felt like he was underwater. His chest was tight, his heart pounded, he was shaky.

He recognised it as a panic attack.

Lex stumbled into the bathroom. He slumped against the wall, drew his knees to his chest and clutched the back of his neck with both hands.

The only thing he could do was wait for it to pass.

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"Don't you think getting dress coded for fishnet is a bit ridiculous? This isn't even in the top ten most scandalous outfits that I wear. Besides, they're under my pants."

Hugo propped his feet up on the table and looked Gus over. "I think it's more so the crop top that they were referring to."

"What about it?"

"If you lift your arms, I can see your nipples."

"Well don't look," Gus offered. He looked at Robbie, who was very much disengaged from the conversation. "Robbie can but not you," he whispered to Hugo.

Hugo rolled his eyes. He sometimes pitied Gus, other times it annoyed him how insufferably desperate he was for Robbie's attention

Robbie increased the volume of his music and stood up. "I'm going to the bathroom."

He went to one of the upstairs bathrooms. Nobody used them because they had huge windows and people could see you from outside. They were tall, arched windows, and for that reason, it had been dubbed the 'Hogwarts bathroom'.

But the Hogwarts bathroom wasn't empty. Between the two rows of cubicles and under the windows, there was person. They had shrunken into a ball – head to knees and knees to chest. There was a string of blue beads clutched in one hand.

Robbie crouched down and put his earbuds in Lex's ears.

He stood, leaned against one of the windowsills and lit a cigarette. He cupped one hand around the flame out of habit.

"Won't that set off the smoke alarms?"

"No," Robbie said, letting out a breath and a puff of smoke with it. "They don't work." He pointed up at the plastic device fitted to the ceiling. "The working ones have a red light that flashes."

Lex stared up at it and Robbie was right. It didn't have a light like it was supposed to. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his hoodie and handed Robbie his earbuds back.

"Thanks."

Robbie nodded.

"What was that song?"

"Dust in the wind," Robbie said. "It's one of my favourites."

Lex liked it too. It sounded sad, but that was somewhat comforting.

Robbie took the cigarette out of his mouth and offered it to Lex. "You smoke before?"

Lex took it. "Only once." That was true. When he was fifteen, Lex had tried to smoke. One of the older boys at his foster home had offered him one and he would've been offended if Lex didn't accept. He took one puff, and his throat didn't feel the same for the next few days.

He figured he would try again now. He breathed in and immediately his throat tickled, demanding that he cough. In trying not to look like an idiot by coughing in front of Robbie, Lex accidentally held the smoke in his mouth for too long. His eyes watered and when he did finally cough, a puff of smoke came out with it.

Robbie watched on in amusement. He plucked the cigarette from between Lex's fingers. "You shouldn't smoke just to impress someone."

"I wasn't trying to impress you."

"Good, you're impressive without it."

Lex looked up at Robbie. He was staring straight ahead.

"It's Robbie...right?"

Robbie's eyes caught Lex's. "How did you know that?"

"Your friend in homeroom talks pretty loud."

Robbie smiled to himself. He was grateful to Gus after all.

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lol not me upsetting myself while writing this chapter :'(