Page 76 of Second Song

He lets out a small, surprised sound, but that’s what happened. I can see it now that Cornish breezes have blown away hazy cobwebs.

“That night, when I couldn’t make myself sing, you were right there in the audience. You came backstage and said Mum would want me to come home. That was the only reason I could make it through to the end of the show. And later, you made that story go away, which must have cost you thousands.” I’ve never thanked him for stepping into Mum’s shoes, for navigating the maze I got lost in, for setting me free from a snare that I can’t let Teo get trapped in. I thank him for all of that now. I also admit, “But I didn’t come back to ask for your permission to let them film here. I came back because I need your help with a student.”

“A student? You are teaching?” He bites his lip. “Only I heard that you pulled out of your training.” And yet none of those messages on my phone were about that second failure, were they? Each text only reminded me of the code to open this school’s locked gates.

So I’d always be able to come back.

I sink onto a chair then, but keep going. “I did pull out, but I’ve been working in a different school as an assistant.” I make myself meet eyes I used to avoid. Were they always this warm and worried? “One of their students needs access to a studio. The production company has offered him access to a professional setup.” My stepdad flinches in the same way I did in the playground. “Would you let him record here instead?”

He nods quickly, and that’s it—mission accomplished. At least it is on the surface, but that flinch is why I still have more help to ask for. I text Luke first, hoping he can convince Teo that I’m on his side, not against him.

My second request risks disturbing ashes that might hide hot coals. I don’t want to burn either of us, but if anyone can fill my hazy gap, it’s this man.

I don’t want to ask this. I’d rather hurl myself from a cliff, but I stand on its edge because Charles says I have good instincts, and because a different headmaster said he’d keep me in a heartbeat if I can face my past to help kids face their futures. Besides, I love a soldier who thinks I’m fearless, so here goes nothing.

I sit in a headmaster’s study.

This still feels like taking a run up and leaping.

“Dad, I’ve got this gap.” I place the roll of paper and workbook between us. “Help me bridge it?”

We end up in the hallway outside his study where I kneel and use the workbook to hold down one end of the roll of paper. My stepdad joins me, crouching, and there isn’t anyone here to overhear his question, but he still speaks quietly.

“What’s this for, Rowan?” He flips the workbook open, a finger tracing a list of subjects Luke once read out to me.

“It’s what I need to work through if I want to stay at Glynn Harber. And I do want to stay, but a lot of the students there have had tough starts, so I need to be prepared to hear about this.” I point at a PTSD heading but I picture little Hadi. “Or about any of these.” My finger skims subjects that aren’t only abstract topics. They’re students I can’t risk failing. “I’ll need to know how to react so that I?—”

“Don’t make things worse for them?”

I nod. He does too. This easy agreement is so different to all those times I couldn’t answer his what happened questions, a contrast that means I now volunteer more information. “I don’t want children to ever feel like I did.”

“Which was?”

“Lost.” His next nod feels like permission to keep going. “And confused about where I’d ended up. I can’t be someone who kids can rely on if I can’t rely on what I remember about myself, can I?” I tell him what Luke mentioned, and for a first time, I apply a word to myself that I can’t keep avoiding. “Trauma blurs perception.” I push my glasses up my nose. “I can’t help kids through their own if my lenses stay smudged forever.”

“And you need my help to clean them?”

I nod again. “So I have to go back to when things went wrong for me, and you’re the only other person who saw what happened from start to finish.” I pull some pens from my pocket. “I’ve made a start.” I push the roll of paper, which unravels. So does something tightly wound inside me the moment he touches some of the earliest memories I’ve documented on this life path.

He murmurs, “Being in the van with Mum, and singing.” This line is a bright orange ribbon threading through our travels. “Spilled peas and homemade shakers.” His wedding ring gleams softly. So do his eyes when they meet mine, and I don’t even try to dodge them. “You were so like her when I first met you. A true free spirit, until…”

His tracing finger reaches a smudge of stormy purple, and he gets up as if wanting distance from it.

I want distance as well, but that’s only more avoidance, and I’ve already avoided confronting this for too long, so I join him at a window. It overlooks the school car park, the night sky above a similar stormy colour, and here’s where I get honest. “I haven’t been free since that contest, but I was already struggling before that.”

He nods but says nothing. Maybe it’s his turn to be voiceless like I was so often. Tonight I fill his silence, hoping this doesn’t sound like blame. “My whole world ended with her.” I picture Charles adding his own colour to a spectrum that I’m not sure I have a place on. I do tap my temple like he did while telling me that my music dial was turned up to full volume. “If I’ve got wiring up here for grief, I blew that circuit.”

He nods again. He also clears his throat, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been reminded of Liam, but here’s another—he’s so gritty. “Your grieving was understandable. You weren’t the first student in my care to lose a parent.” Here’s some raw honesty from him. “But I hadn’t ever grieved at the same time. Not before then. I’d go to work every morning, but I’d always stop here first.” He points to the car park below us.

“Why?”

“Because this is where I saw her for the first time. Or rather, it’s where I first heard you and her singing together. Lizzie was the only peripatetic tutor who brought a child along to sessions. We had words about it. She told me where I could stick my opinions about your education, and it wasn’t in my pipe to smoke them.”

I snort. That fierceness was pure Mum.

“She told me you were unique. That a classroom would only cage you. That you were gifted, and you went ahead and proved it.”

“I did?” I don’t remember this meeting.

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