Page 64 of Second Song

I do, and there’s Rowan.

He’s below us, beside that picnic bench. His voice drifts up, giving me a name for the kid sitting opposite Teo. “Noah, isn’t it?” he asks. “How’s the lamb?”

Across the picnic table, Teo stops tapping. “What lamb?”

The redheaded kid says, “Mine.”

He pulls out a phone and slides it across the table just as Luke murmurs, “Only a few of our students are allowed to keep their phones during school hours.” He glances my way. “The ones particularly affected by trauma who are here to face whatever is holding them back from flourishing. Part of that is being open about what happened to them. Not with me. With themselves first. Then with our counsellor. They’re safe here to do that, and part of that is due to our location. That doesn’t stop them from running away sometimes.”

“Running away?” I shift, uncomfortably reminded of Matt asking when I was going to quit doing that shit to him.

“Yes,” Luke murmurs, his voice still low. “They run away, or freeze, which keeps them locked in a holding pattern instead of thriving. Sometimes they fight, with themselves, mostly. That’s when their lives are the toughest and most isolating. We want them to have their phones for those dark-night-of-the-soul moments so they know they aren’t cut off. When they’re ready to talk, they make real progress. Until then…”

He shakes his head, and I don’t know why he’s telling me this or why I’m this salty. “He needs to stay here.”

“Noah?” Luke asks quietly. “Or Teo?”

I shake my head. To be honest, I’m too caught by this bird’s-eye view of Rowan to answer more fully. He cradles a phone showing a photo of a chunkier version of the newborn lamb I remember. Rowan even says so. “There’s no way that’s the same lamb, is it?” He laughs, and I fucking love that sound. Luke must do too. A smile flickers as Rowan crows, “She’s grown so much!”

More students gather. Even from up here, I can see that Noah’s flush clashes with his red hair. “Because of you, sir.” He addresses an audience that gets even bigger. “She wouldn’t have made it without Mr. Byrn.” His voice sharpens like he expects someone to rip the piss out of him for caring about livestock. “It’s true.”

He doesn’t need to spit these bullets. This group only asks interested questions that let Noah relax enough to answer.

“Because he jumped straight over a cliff to save her. People have died right there. A countess did once. Killed stone dead, brains all smashed out. And my brother-in-law rolled his Land Rover at the exact same spot. It’s bad luck. A legit death trap.”

Another student is impressed. And ghoulish. “He smashed his brains out too?”

“Nah. Banged up his arm pretty bad. Hung over the cliff in his Land Rover like this for hours.” Noah makes a seesawing hand motion. “He said he thought he was done for. That could have been you, Mr. Byrn, but you went after her anyway.” Noah’s voice turns husky. “You were wicked brave.”

That’s a lot of praise Rowan can’t have expected.

The tips of his ears flame, and I want to kiss them. Kiss him. Tell him that he’s a muppet with a death wish and hold him. Just hold him. Only I don’t know how I’d let him go if I got started.

The conversation moves on, and someone asks another question. This one isn’t lamb related. It can’t be. Teo’s anger reaches us in the window where both I and this school’s headmaster hear him snap, “You calling me a liar? You really going there, blud? Get ready to take it back.”

I’ve been trained in the difference between defence and attack. From this bird’s-eye perspective, it’s hard to tell which applies to Teo’s outburst or to guess what provoked this man-sized student into shooting up from his seat. All I see is that he advances on Rowan and that I’m an inch away from parachuting myself between them until his boss grasps my elbow, but Teo’s fist curls, and that’s it.

I’m only two floors up. I’ve jumped from higher buildings, but never for a better reason, although I can’t believe this is the same kid who lent me his headphones. Who tested the volume while asking careful questions, worried I was hurting.

I also can’t believe I follow an order that Luke whispers.

“Wait.”

My split-second pause gives Teo the time to swing, and the kid has got a long reach.

Rowan doesn’t.

He has even fewer self-preservation instincts than Maisie Dymond, he’s so fucking trusting. And, of course, Teo’s fist makes contact. But thank fuck I didn’t jump in. It means I get to see Rowan’s reaction to Teo thrusting his drumsticks at him while sounding this fierce and certain. “Go on, sir. Show him I wasn’t lying. You are the best drummer in Glynn Harber.”

“He’d never hurt him.” I must say that aloud. Luke agrees.

“I’ve never known anyone to reach Teo so quickly, apart from Charles.”

That’s who else closes in on the bench below us. The padre as well. Rowan isn’t alone while facing what could have gone sideways in a heartbeat but only ends with a request from Teo.

“Show them, sir.”

Rowan does, playing paradiddles first on a football resting on the picnic table. Its synthetic leather means this beat is muted. What he says isn’t. It carries all the way up to this window.

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