Angie wandered through the first days back at school like a ghost slipping between walls, there, but barely. The halls buzzed with laughter and reunions, but for her, every day folded into the next with a weight she couldn't shake off. Each morning felt heavier than the last, and the moments she longed for, the small, safe spaces she once shared with Walker, became harder to find. Their friendship, once a quiet comfort, began to fray at the edges. He had football; she had netball. Different sports. Different fields. Different clocks.
After class, the bell didn't ring freedom anymore, it scattered them into opposite corners of the school grounds. And by the time training was done, they were just two exhausted kids walking separate paths under the same setting sun. The distance between them wasn't measured in meters, but in moments lost, conversations never had, glances that never met. Angie felt it every second. She needed him more than she dared to say, and he was slipping just far enough away that it hurt. But netball, netball was compulsory. At least for the first few weeks. Until the coaches made their final cuts. Angie, despite everything, made the team.
At first, she celebrated it quietly. It meant she was good enough. Fast enough. Useful. But reality hit harder than the ball ever could. The netball girls were giants, towering bodies full of sneers and elbows. Angie, with her wiry limbs and soft voice, felt like an insect scurrying beneath their feet, always in the way, always unnoticed until crushed.
They didn't just bruise her skin; they bruised her being.
The names they called her weren't the clumsy jokes of bored children. They were sharp, calculated, meant to slice beneath the surface. "Stray." "Leftover." "Ghost girl." Words that made her chest tighten and her breath catch before she even stepped onto the court. But worse far worse, were the things they said about her mother.
"She's not coming back, you know," one of them sneered one afternoon, loud enough to silence the rest. "Gone-gone. Not just the kind you wait for." They said it with a sick certainty, their voices dripping with something overheard in hushed tones at kitchen tables or behind bedroom doors, whispers passed down from parents who thought children didn't listen.
"My mom said it was something bad. That's why no one talks about it," another added, eyes wide with mock sympathy. "They're hiding it from her. Poor thing doesn't even know." "'Better place,'" Shirley mocked with a hollow laugh. "That's just what grown-ups say when it's too ugly to say the truth.
They didn't ask if Angie had heard. They didn't care if she had. Their words weren't questions, they were daggers, thrown with precision and delight. And Angie, standing frozen among them, felt something collapse inside her. Because it didn't sound like gossip. It sounded like confirmation. As if the world had already closed the chapter. As if she was the only one still searching for the pages. And Shirley, Shirley was the worst.
Built like a storm and twice as cruel. She didn't need a reason to shove Angie down. Sometimes it was during drills, other times in the locker room, or on the walk home. A sudden shove. A cruel word. A laugh that didn't end until Angie's silence made it uncomfortable.
The training sessions dragged into the evening. When the rest of the school had emptied into the world beyond the gates, Angie remained, sweaty, scraped, and surrounded by the very people who wished her smallest. The walk home became another battleground. Shirley and her pack would linger just close enough to remind her she didn't belong. They mocked her clothes, her pink top, riddled with tiny holes, one she adored for reasons even she couldn't explain. They'd yank at her collar like she was some ragdoll they'd outgrown.
Sometimes they pushed her hard enough that her knees met the gravel. Tiny scratches bloomed, quiet little wounds no one cared to ask about. But to Angie, they weren't just cuts. They were memory markers. Proof that the world had its foot on her neck.
One Friday afternoon, everything spiralled differently. Practice ended, and they were walking as usual, Angie trailing behind the bullies, praying they'd ignore her for once. Ahead, the football boys were filtering out. Laughter. Sweat. Mud-caked cleats. Among them was Walker, walking with Jade. They were chatting animatedly, their faces bright with something Angie hadn't felt in weeks…joy.
Something fluttered in her chest at the sight.
Without thinking, she called out softly at first, her voice barely catching the wind.
"Walker…"
He didn't turn. So, she tried again, louder this time. But her voice cracked in her throat like a dry twig.
The bullies heard. Of course, they did. "Oh look," Shirley sneered, grabbing Angie by the collar of her frayed shirt. "Walker! Walker! This weirdo's calling you!" They shoved Angie forward like an offering, laughter ringing behind her. She stumbled, cheeks burning, just as Walker turned. His eyes landed on her, first in confusion, then in fury. Without hesitation, he stormed over, grabbed Angie's hand, and stepped in front of her like a wall. His fist clenched so tight it trembled by his side. His eyes locked onto Shirley's, daring her to take one more step.
She didn't.
She just grinned, gleeful, unbothered.
Jade rushed behind Walker, gently tugging him away. "Let's go," he said firmly. Walker didn't let go of Angie's hand. Together, the three of them walked away, putting distance between themselves and the girls still laughing behind them. Angie didn't speak. She couldn't.
The sob came from somewhere deep, deeper than she thought her chest could hold. It was raw, guttural, and terrifying in its force. It was the cry she never allowed herself to cry. The cry she swallowed the day she realized her mother wasn't coming back. The cry she bit down every time Catherine's hand struck her.
It tore from her now, ripping through her like a flood finally breaking a dam. Walker tried to soothe her, his voice low and soft, whispering things she couldn't quite make out over the roar of her own grief. His words drifted around her like smoke, comforting in shape but impossible to grasp. Her ears were ringing. The world had grown muffled, distant, like she was hearing everything from underwater.
Jade looked back once, just briefly, his eyes flicking over her crumpled form. Then, wordlessly, he turned and walked ahead, slipping into the fading light like a shadow peeling away from the wall. Whether he left because he felt awkward, or because he understood something sacred was unravelling in that moment, Angie would never know. But part of her was grateful. She couldn't have handled another pair of eyes watching her fall apart.
And then she stopped walking. Her body halted as if struck by an invisible force. One foot rooted to the pavement, the other dangling mid-step before collapsing beneath her weight. Her chest heaved, her mouth open wide but catching no air. A high, sharp sound clawed its way up her throat, a cry, a gasp, a scream, then fractured into silence. Her sobs turned violent, primal, wracking her frame in waves she couldn't contain.
She was drowning in it now.
The grief she'd stuffed into the cracks of herself for years burst free like floodwater through broken glass. It wasn't just crying. It was a rupture. A collapse of everything she'd held together with threadbare hope and forced smiles. She cried for her mother, the absence that shaped every inch of her world, the love she still felt like a phantom limb. She cried for the things never said, the arms that never held her again, the warmth she still searched for in dreams. She cried for Catherine's beatings, for the silence at dinner tables, for the way her name was used like a curse at school. For the years of pretending she was okay when she wasn't. For being too young to carry so much.
It all spilled out at once.
And then something shifted. Her legs buckled. Her hands, once clenched at her sides, began to twitch. Her eyes widened in alarm, blinking rapidly, then freezing mid-blink. The sobs kept trying to escape, but her mouth no longer obeyed. Her arms jerked once, violently, before her entire body went rigid.
Walker, terrified now, reached out just in time to catch her before she hit the ground. He lowered her carefully, panic rising in his throat like bile. She was shaking—no, trembling, in spasms that came in bursts, like thunderclaps moving through her bones. Her head tilted back slightly, her eyes fluttering as though she were trying to wake from a nightmare. "Angie?" he said sharply, but she didn't answer. Her breath came in short, shallow bursts. Then stopped. Then gasped. Her jaw clenched tight, her lips parting in a way that wasn't natural, twisted slightly, as if her face no longer belonged to her. Her fingers curled in on themselves, rigid and pale, and a faint foamy trace touched the corner of her mouth.
Walker didn't know what was happening. He didn't have a name for it. All he knew was that something was wrong. He knelt beside her, his heart pounding so loud it drowned out everything else. "Angie! Angie, look at me!"
No response.
The sun had sunk lower now, bleeding deep orange across the school grounds, casting long, stretched shadows over the concrete. Everything had gone still. Even the trees seemed to hold their breath. No one came. No one passed by. The school had emptied long ago, its buildings now quiet tombs of voices that had gone home. But Walker stayed. He eased her onto her side, trying to remember if that was the right thing to do, he wasn't sure, but it felt right. He brushed her damp hair back from her forehead, fingers trembling, watching helplessly as her body slowly began to still.
The tremors stopped. The silence that followed was thick and aching. For a moment, he thought she had passed out. Her eyes closed, her breathing slowed into shallow pulls of air. Her limbs lay limp now, not quite relaxed, but no longer fighting her. She looked like she was sleeping, but her face remained tight with something unseen, fear, pain, exhaustion… he couldn't tell.
Minutes passed. Maybe more. Time had lost its grip.
He sat beside her in silence, her head cradled gently against his shoulder, his own legs folded awkwardly beneath him. The concrete was cold, but he didn't move. He just watched the sky change colour, watched the world forget them. Eventually, she stirred. It was small at first, a twitch of her fingers, a soft inhale like the first breath after surfacing from water. Her lashes fluttered. Her eyes opened.
Confusion clouded her face.
She blinked up at him, disoriented, as if waking from a dream she couldn't quite escape. Her lips parted like she was about to speak, but nothing came out. Just silence. Walker looked down at her with relief etched deep into his features. He didn't ask what happened. He only helped her sit up slowly, careful not to rush her. She moved like her bones were made of glass, every part of her aching, hollow, heavy.
Together, they stood. The walk home was quiet. Neither of them spoke. Angie couldn't remember when they started walking. Her legs felt rubbery, each step echoing in a world that no longer felt solid beneath her feet. Her body throbbed, her chest, her skull, her spine. Something had cracked open inside her, and whatever it was, it had changed her.
She didn't understand it. She couldn't name it. But it frightened her. When they reached the path where Walker was meant to turn off for his house, he didn't. He just kept walking beside her, steady and silent, making sure she made it home. Angie didn't thank him. She didn't have the words. But his presence alone was the only thread keeping her from unravelling completely.
They were only children. But whatever life was throwing at them, it didn't care. It expected them to survive it anyway. Walker smiled softly, unsure. He stayed beside her as they walked. She nodded, weak but ready. They walked home in silence. No words left. None needed. When they reached the turnoff to Walker's house, he didn't take it. He kept walking beside her, all the way to her gate. He didn't say why. She didn't ask.
Home wasn't a place of relief.
Catherine stood waiting. Arms crossed. Fury radiating off her like heat. Every other child was back, even those who trained beside Angie. Some had arrived half an hour ago. But Angie, dragging her feet, empty-eyed and silent, was just now arriving. Ian was there too, hovering near Catherine like a shadow she couldn't escape. They were working on something behind the grandmother's house, but Angie didn't look.
She knew.
The moment her eyes met Catherine's, she knew. The storm was coming. Her body was too sore to take another beating, but she could feel it anyway, etched into the air, into the way her feet stilled at the gate. She didn't run. She didn't cry. She simply braced. Because some storms didn't pass. Some, you had to walk straight into. So, she did.