For the first time in a while, I almost felt good. I even giggled to myself on the way back up the stairwell, which gave me even more reason to keep grinning, because I hadn't heard myself laugh in months.

I was less scared of shadowy corners from this direction. It was like the sun's rays had finally hit the endless abyss at the bottom of the ocean. Or something gay like that. Whatever. I learnt about it from a documentary on Channel 4, once.

I arrived back to the flat hiding my grin behind my hand, which made Mum suspicious. Carl winked at me, which would have normally put him back into the total creepster category, but I let his gesture slide.

"So, did Tisha like her card?" Mum asked, unable to control her own smile too.

"Yeah," I replied, scrubbing the smirk off my face, prompt like. "She liked the rabbits I drew. Said they were pretty neat."

"I'm sure that's not all she liked," Carl added, batting my mum's arm. "You always said he'd turn out to be a lady-killer, Janey."

I shrugged in response. Girls were whatever.

But Mum wanted more out of me, and for me to say more than two sentences at any given point was far too much chitchat than I was comfortable with. "So...?" she prodded. "Did she say anything else?"

I shrugged a second time. I didn't really like them both looking at me like I had some big secret to reveal. I played it cool. "Nope. Why would she? She's not my girlfriend."

Mum did that big, exaggerated "oh, okay, honey" and let me get about my business. What did they expect would happen? That'd I'd get my first kiss or something? As if! I like Tisha, but not like that. Not like, kissing and stuff. She's just... pretty fly. And she's nice, and makes me feel good. And I've known her since forever...

But still, I couldn't help but spending the rest of the day in my room thinking about her. I lay on my back on my bed (which still had a lame Hot Wheels cover on it from years ago) secretly hoping she would keep my birthday card up in her bedroom so she could be reminded of her holiday in the forest when she looked at it, and then inside would be my crappy handwriting that would make her laugh because I'd spelt birthday with an F in it.

Maybe next year when we were both thirteen I'd be invited to her party if I was nice to her and made her like me more. It would be my first ever party invite, except the one I sent myself when I was nine, because Jonty was shady and didn't invite me swimming again.

Perhaps I could get her a present if I saved all my quids up. Maybe if I could be friends with Tisha I could be friends with her friends, and they'd all like me too, and then the people at school wouldn't keep ratting me out on stuff just so they could laugh when Miss Martens gave me detentions.

Adults say shit like 'it's character building' or 'you have to stand up to people who wrong you', as though they really don't believe me when I say I don't mean to keep messing up.

But if I knew Tisha... Wouldn't people think I was okay after all, because a cool girl wanted to hang out with me?

I hated to even think it.

While on suspension I normally woke up just before noon, but that morning I was up and dressed at 7am and decided for the first time in about two years that my bio-hazard of a bedroom deserved some attention.

Mum only popped to the laundrette once a week, so there was a permanent backlog of unwashed clothes around the house. From my floor I picked out my best blue jumper and the jeans I usually reserved for Christmas dinner. That was also the morning I tugged a brush through my hair and finally tried that eau du toilette my dad sent me once.

I probably shouldn't have sprayed as much as I did; I smelt like an old church.

All Tisha had said was 'tomorrow'. When tomorrow? Early? Midday? Afternoon? Tomorrow could mean anything. Why did she have to be so vague?

Around 1pm I poured a can of beans off the hob. By then I'd already finished Mum's X-Files box-set, even though she'd been telling me for months that I wasn't old enough. By 3pm I was blowing spit-balls out the window at the main road down below, three points for cars, ten for a bus, and by 5pm I'd resorted to hanging off the back of the sofa until I went dizzy. By 7, the women in Mum's magazines each sported a dashing biro-ink moustache. Normally I could vegetate for hours, but I'd never been so restless in my entire life.

At half 8, the doorbell buzzed.

"Shit," I blurted. I hadn't even realised I'd been asleep.

I jerked upright, wiped the drool off my cheek and furiously patted down the tufts of hair that still insisted that vertical was the best arrangement. I rolled on spilt M&Ms as I dashed to the door. Didn't matter. They could stick to my socks for all I cared. I had to hurry to Tisha.

What if she'd already buzzed the doorbell and I hadn't heard it? What if she had already left? What if I was too quick to answer? Would that look too lame?

I took a final glance at myself in the mirror by the front door. Pale. Freckly. Too-big teeth. A permanent cold sore. I'd do. I'd have to. She was already here with cake.

I unlatched the door and greeted her with my best smile.

But it wasn't Tisha.

My stomach shrank into a ball when I saw his face.

My first reflex was to close the door on him, but Darren was strong and grabbed me by the elbow faster than I could even begin to shut it.

I let loose a broken scream. Tried to struggle free. He slammed open the door, shattering the mirror, and clasped his other hand around my mouth.

I thought my teeth were going to break.

"Shut the fuck up," he spat in my ear. "Shut the fuck up right now."

If I was a real liar, and I'm not, I'd tell you I fought back and was brave. I'd tell you I bit his hand, kicked him in the balls and managed to run away off the estate, and that none of the rest of it ever happened.

I wouldn't admit that I was so scared I wet myself. I wouldn't tell you I cried out desperately for my mum in that moment, knowing she would never hear me. You'd never hear about how I silently made my goodbyes; how I was wholly convinced I'd be the next victim found dead and raped in a roadside ditch on BBC News tomorrow morning.

I screamed and screamed and screamed into his palm when all his other friends put their hands on me too. Some grabbed me around the ankles and lifted them high above my head, others held me under my armpits, near pulling my arms from their sockets. Some twisted my flesh for the fun of it, and in unison they carried me through the corridors, laughing and shouting to mask my muffled screams.

They man-handled me all the way down the stairwell and outside to the lane of tin sheds. It was already dark outside. Winter had left behind the first smears of frost on the concrete.

They threw me down and took it in turns to kick me. I curled up tight. Tighter. I buried my face in my chest; kept my elbows raised above my head. My knees prevented them from hurting my stomach too much, but my back and kidneys took the worst of it.

The first kicks sent my body whirling into shock, but after that the rest of me went numb. Just quivering. Just hanging on. Just hoping they did nothing permanent.

They tore my best sweater as they uncurled me from my position and splayed me out like a rat on a dissecting table. I think I cried big, ugly tears the whole time.

Darren straddled me, pinned me down beneath him and prised my eyelids open with his fingers.

"Keep him still," he said to somebody nearby.

Two others took hold of my wrists and stood on them. My eyes began to burn.

"Get his feet."

Two more guys clamped my ankles, forcing my heels down into the concrete. I had no idea what became of one of my socks.

Darren spared none of his weight on my abdomen. I couldn't draw in my hands and legs however hard I tried to. I was weak. Pathetic. My body wasn't even my own anymore, and the panic suffocated me.

I had no doubt in those moments that this was how I'd die.

"This is what you get for making a mug of me, Rainer Breese," Darren said. "You've had it coming, and, well, here it fucking is."

The next sound was the strike of a match.