Page 66 of Second Song

Charles verbalises that for me. “Go and find out. Better yet, give him a really good reason to stay for longer. Tell him how you’re feeling.”

“But I’ve only known him for—” I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose and count the weeks back to our clifftop meeting, but Charles isn’t interested in numbers.

“All I can tell you is that it only took me a few minutes to know I’d met someone special in Hugo. One drawn curtain in the chapel, a joint hunt for a lost lamb, and I was all in. Speaking of—” He breaks off to wave across the playground at a little boy who holds hands between Dom Dymond and the padre. He’s all smiles today compared to the first time I saw him in the library. He even shouts, “Charles Heppel, look!” His next roar echoes. “I’ve got a hard hat!”

He waves it just as Charles sketches a love heart in the air and follows it with a fork of lightning that he aims at me. His voice lowers. “I’m not saying the same has to be true for you. Not at all. I had plenty of flings and was perfectly happy, but I’ve never regretted falling for Hugo in a hurry. I only regretted running away from what was obvious to everyone around us. I should have run straight towards him, but I didn’t trust my instincts.”

There’s that word he uses around me so often.

“Tell someone they’re stupid enough times, and they’ll believe it.” He taps his forehead. “All part of the fun of being a bit extra, right?” he says, as if I’m an expert on any of those colours he sketched on the blackboard. “For all of its gifts, it can mean having blind spots, so if you ever aren’t sure about your instincts, remember our tools. Look.” He fumbles in his pocket, then digs through those cards made for children. “Here.”

He thrusts joy in my face. “You look like this every time you see him. If you aren’t sure, check in a mirror. If you see this looking back at you, believe that you’re allowed to want more of it. With him or whoever else makes you happy. I’m not the boss of you, I’m just saying that you deserve to be happy.”

That’s his constant message, isn’t it?

He repeats it in different ways for every kid here. Now he tugs on my lanyard and make the same promise to me as I’ve heard him whisper to them. “You’re brilliant, and we’re so lucky to have you. He would be too, so it’s okay to ask him if that’s what he wants with you for longer.”

The wind must have changed direction. Either that or Liam’s picked up his sledgehammer. Something pounds, and rubbing my chest doesn’t make it any quieter, but that’s where Charles looks. His gaze only slowly rises from my hand to my eyes. “Go and see him,” he says quietly. “Then go look in a mirror. At the very least, you’ll have a name for what you’re feeling.”

I don’t mean to sound this wistful. “While we’re both still here.”

“While you’re both here? You’re not going anywhere, Rowan Byrn.”

I carry that wishful, wistful thinking all the way to the library, where I’d stow it in a new time capsule along with Noah’s wicked brave chorus if I could. Only I wouldn’t cover it with dirt and concrete, burying it like I buried what happened when I was the same age as the kids around that table.

No, I’d keep it safe to preserve what hasn’t let up even once since I arrived here. Being wanted is so powerful that even if I can’t do what Charles suggested, I do want to share Noah’s praise with Liam. He did all the real lamb-saving, not me, only he isn’t where I expect to find him.

I lean over the barrier at the library, pushing aside the netting and peering, but the space behind it is empty, no sign of Liam or any more time-capsule surprises. There’s no old desk or bookshelves, no sign of anything but this site being ready for the last stage of a process that will spell the end of his time here.

Maybe that’s why I head upstairs before going back to the classroom. Not because I’m about to ask for glitter or for more drumstick money. It isn’t Austin I need. It’s Luke, who mentioned what I’d need to untangle if I really want to stay here.

I’d have to do that training. Have to relive every trip and stumble right up to where my path cut off in stormy purple.

Luke told me I could do this, said he believed I’d be an asset. The same old excuses of I don’t know and I can’t remember that I last made in a different headmaster’s study won’t cut it with him. But since jumping off cliffs and kissing? Since garden walks and singing? Since Charles and all of his children, and especially since Teo took off his headphones and started talking?

That wicked-brave chorus won’t quit repeating, and I’m bolstered. Supported. Strong enough to at least ask some trauma-informed questions.

Today, even the shiny knock-and-wait sign outside Luke’s study doesn’t give me flashbacks. I don’t need to wait outside for a red light to turn green while dread slowly and surely rises. I don’t even have to knock. The door is already open, and I push it wider to find the only other person who has ever said I’ve got courage.

Liam.

He’s midway through making his own gritty offer.

“I can do it.”

Do what?

Luke’s answer fills in one gap, at least. “I can’t ask you to repair the bridge for me. I really can’t. It needs a complete rebuild.”

Liam silhouetted in the window. “Pretty sure you didn’t ask. I offered. And I’m pretty sure that rebuilding bridges is what Royal Engineers do. You know, after conflict? During it as well.” He describes working conditions that I hate to think of but also mean there’s no arguing with his work experience. “Whatever’s wrong with your bridge, I can figure out how to fix it.”

“No,” Luke says. “I didn’t mean you wouldn’t know how.”

The man Charles sent me to beg cash from speaks up from his side of their shared desk. For once, Austin doesn’t sound ferocious. If anything, he’s apologetic. “Luke means we really don’t have the budget.” He can’t have seen me in the doorway or I don’t think he’d say this with so much feeling. “We can’t even afford fully qualified teachers, can we? But maybe we should bump that bridge repair higher up the list, Luke. I do hate the thought of Hadi worrying about it.” He addresses Liam again. “If—and I do mean if—we find the money in the future, when are you next in Cornwall?”

Liam moves out of the sunlight streaming through the window and sees me in the doorway. He speaks to Austin, but it’s me he looks at, and it’s me who stops breathing as soon as he says, “Fully qualified or not, I’m pretty sure your kids are getting brilliant teaching.” He aims the rest at Luke while a shelf of trophies shows me exactly what Charles promised.

All that shiny silver reflects joy the moment Liam says, “I’m in no hurry to go.” He flashes a look my way. I don’t know how to decipher his rawness. “Just think about what else I asked, yeah? I can pull the Liverpool job forward, then come back to work through the whole break, no problem. I know the demo has a tight time limit. I’ll make it happen and rebuild your bridge for you.”

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