Castlefields Academy, Thetford. 4:12pm
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The main doors swung shut and the car park opened in front of them.
The afternoon light was lower now, the sun sliding toward evening. A few staff cars near the building, a dark saloon at the far end, the bus shelter on the road beyond. Through the advertising panel, the countdown screen cycled: WHO YOU REALLY ARE — EPISODE THREE. 1 DAY.
Ethan registered it without stopping. What was immediate was Mum. The set of her shoulders ahead of him. The coat buttoned wrong, the hem uneven. Her hands clenched at her sides.
Hannah behind him. Gym bag, backpack. No one speaking.
Ethan could feel it in his ribs. The same tightness from the gate, the corridor, the meeting. Compressed. Waiting.
Mum stopped. Turned.
Her face was wrong. The mask from the meeting gone. What was underneath wasn't grief. It was something held down too long, coming up hard.
She laughed. A short, ugly sound aimed at Hannah.
"Not a fucking word from you."
Hannah's hand tightened on her gym bag strap. "I didn't say anything."
"You never have to. You just stand there judging me. You sat in that meeting like a saint while they talked about our family like we were a case study."
"Every time I speak you don't listen."
"Don't you dare." Mum's voice was rising, her finger unsteady, her whole hand trembling. "You think I didn't see the way you looked at me when they told everyone you played the hero? You pushed a boy and walked him to the nurse. Do you want a fucking medal?"
Hannah didn't blink. "I helped him. What did you do?"
The words landed cold. Flat. Hannah's voice at its most controlled.
Mum's face sharpened. "I was at home. Waiting for a phone call that didn't come for hours."
"And before that? After that? You're never anywhere. You're in the kitchen with your bottles and you don't come out."
"WHY NOT JUST SAY IT. CALL YOUR MOTHER A DRUNK IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE FUCKING SCHOOL."
Mum's voice echoed off the buildings. Students near the gate turned. Mrs Daley's silhouette appeared at an upper window.
Hannah didn't raise her voice. "I wasn't going to say that. But you just did."
"Then what. What's so important that you had to stand in that room and make me look like I'm nothing—like I'm not even his mother—"
"You made yourself look like that. Mrs Daley asked about me living with Nan and Grandad and you said it was what I wanted. You didn't look at me. You never look at me. You look through me."
Mum stepped forward. The gap shrinking. Her whole body shaking.
"I have given you everything. I have stayed in that house. I have done everything on my own since your father—"
"Don't." Hannah's voice cracked—once—and recovered. "Don't use Dad."
"He was my husband. MINE. You don't get to tell me how to grieve. You left. You walked out with your boyfriend and you never looked back."
"I was fourteen and I couldn't watch you kill yourself anymore." Hannah's voice was tight, controlled, the effort visible but contained. "Every morning I came downstairs not knowing if you'd be breathing. Do you know what that's like?"
Mum laughed again—wet, sharp, broken. "You say that like I had a choice. Like I wake up and decide to be this."
"Then stop. Just stop."
"STOP? You don't get to tell me to stop. You ran away to Brandon with your perfect little life and your perfect little grades and your—your Kyle—"
"Hey! Kyle's family took me in when I had nowhere else. They did what you couldn't do."
"Then go back to them. You're so much better off without me."
"I never said that."
"You left. That says everything."
"I left because I was drowning and you didn't even notice. Three days and you didn't call."
"You wanted to go."
"I WANTED YOU TO FIGHT FOR ME!." Hannah's voice broke—the second crack, deeper than the first. She held herself very still. "I wanted my mum. I still want my mum. And you're right in front of me and you're not there."
Ethan couldn't move. The pressure in his ribs had become a weight pressing outward. His heartbeat in his throat, in his hands, in the bruise on his cheekbone.
Mum's face wavered—the wall cracking—then hardened again, deliberately. Ethan watched her do it. He'd watched her do it for years.
"You know what your fucking problem is? You think you're so strong. The gym, the training. But you're not better than me. In the end you’re a selfish child who ran away and left her brother to—"
"She didn't leave me."
Ethan's voice. Quiet. Steady. He hadn't known he was going to speak.
Mum turned. Her eyes wild. "Stay out of this."
"No."
And as she turned, he smelled it. The sour note, stronger now. The wine. The cover spray she'd used before the meeting—one of those pharmacy things for workplace screenings—had worn off. Forty minutes in the heated room, the walk, the shouting. The truth coming through her skin now. Through her breath. Through the tremor in her hands that had become a shaking she couldn't control.
He could smell it from three feet away. The teachers at the windows could smell it from ten.
"She tried to stay. For years. She did everything you weren't doing."
"Ethan, you don't understand—"
"I understand fine."
"Please, Mum. Let's go home. We don't need to do this here."Ethan said.
She was looking around now. At Mrs Daley, Mr Andrews, two other teachers. At the students by the gate, phones out. The car park had become a stage and she was trying to pull the mask back up and the mask wouldn't come.
She turned back to Hannah. Her voice tighter now. More dangerous.
"This is your fault. Your little heroics. You made me look like I don't care about my own son."
"You did that yourself."
"Don't you dare judge me. You don't know what I've been through."
"I know you use him."
Mum went still.
"Every time someone gets close to the truth. Every time the teachers ask questions. You bring up Dad. You talk about how hard it's been. You make them feel sorry for you. And it works. It always works."
Something shifted in Mum's face. The anger draining, replaced by something that looked almost like fear.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't grieve him. You use him."
"YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE—!"
Mum's hand went back.
Ethan saw it happen in the same slow motion as Conor's punches this morning. The weight shifting. The arm lifting. She wasn't thinking. It was reflex. Hannah had named the thing Mum could not bear to have named—the thing that let her sit at the kitchen table with the bottle and tell herself she was still a mother, still a widow, still doing her best. Hannah had seen through it. Hannah had said it out loud.
Hannah didn't flinch. She just stood there, waiting.
Ethan stepped between them.
The slap landed on his face. The same cheek Conor had hit. The bruise already dark, already throbbing. The pain was immediate—white-hot, blinding, through his cheekbone and into his skull. Worse than Conor's punches. Much worse. His head snapped sideways. His teeth clicked. The split lip reopened and blood ran over his chin.
The force knocked him off balance. He went down. One knee hitting the tarmac, then the other. His hands went out to catch himself and his palms scraped across the ground. He stayed there on his knees, head down, blood dripping from his chin onto the tarmac in small dark spots.
The sound echoed across the car park.
Then footsteps. Running. The main doors opened and Mrs Daley was crossing the tarmac fast, her coat flying behind her.
"Ethan. Ethan—"
She reached him. Crouched down. Her hand hovering near his shoulder, not touching.
"Ethan, can you hear me? Are you all right? Let me see your face."
Ethan didn't look up. The world had narrowed to the pain in his cheek and the blood on the ground and the sound of his own breathing. Mrs Daley's voice was there but it was happening to someone else, on the other side of a door he couldn't open.
"Ethan." She tried again. Gentle. "I need you to look at me. Can you look at me?"
He shook his head. A small movement. His hand came up, palm out. Stop. He couldn't speak. He just needed everyone to stop.
Mrs Daley understood. She withdrew her hand. Stood up slowly. Looked at Mum, who was standing frozen with her hand still raised, her face a mask of shock.
"I saw what happened." Mrs Daley's voice was steady now. "Mrs Clarke, step back. Step back now."
Mum's hand dropped. She stepped back. She was shaking. Her mouth open but no words coming.
Mrs Daley looked down at Ethan, still on his knees. She looked at Hannah, who had dropped her gym bag and was crouching beside her brother, her hand on his back.
"Stay with him," Mrs Daley said quietly. "I'll be right inside. There are things I have to do. But I'll be right inside."
Hannah nodded. She didn't look up.
Mrs Daley turned. Walked back toward the building. At the door she stopped and looked back once—at Ethan on the ground, at Hannah beside him, at Mum standing alone and frozen and broken. Then she went inside to make the call.
Hannah's voice, close to his ear. "Ethan. Let me see your face."
He let her tilt his chin up. The new mark reddening on top of the old bruise. The split lip bleeding freely, dripping onto his shirt. Her fingers steady.
"We need to get you ice. We need to—"
"Hannah." She stopped. He looked at her. Her eyes were wet—the first tears, finally coming. "I have to do this..she can’t keep doing this to you."
She stared at him. Her little brother. On his knees in a car park. Blood on his face. About to speak. Something passed between them—years of her protecting him, years of him watching her be erased.
Her face broke. Tears came. Silent. Jaw still tight. She nodded. Stepped back. Trusting him.
He got to his feet. Slowly. His ribs aching. His cheek throbbing. His palms stinging where the tarmac had scraped them raw. He stood. He faced Mum.
The car park was very quiet. The teachers at the windows still there. The students at the gate. The countdown screen cycling silently: 1 DAY.
Ethan looked at his mother. His cheek throbbing. Lip bleeding. Hands shaking. His voice, when he spoke, was steady.
"How dare you."
Quiet. Worse than quiet. Carrying.
"How dare you try to hurt my sister. Your daughter."
Mum's mouth opened. Nothing came out. The anger was gone from her face. What was left looked like a room after an explosion.
"You know she helped me in the fight. She pushed him off me. She told him if he ever touched me again she would end him. She meant it. She walked me to the nurse. She stayed with me. She shouldn't have had to do any of that."
He paused.
"She's fifteen. She's been doing this since she was ten. Since Dad died. Since you stopped getting up. She only had to be there today because you were never there at home. And when Mr Andrews told you what she did, you said you were glad someone was there. Like she was a stranger. Like she wasn't your own child doing the thing you made her become."
Mum's hand was at her mouth. Her eyes huge.
Hannah touched his shoulder. "Ethan, you don't have to—" Her voice wet. She was crying now. Quietly. Jaw still tight.
He looked at her. "I do. No one else ever has."
She nodded. Tears falling. She didn't look at Mum. She kept her eyes on Ethan.
He turned back to Mum.
"You want to know what Hannah was doing while you were sleeping and drinking?"
"Hannah did my breakfast. Every morning. She reminded me about homework. She walked me to school. She read me bedtime stories when Dad died." His voice caught on Dad. He kept going. "Every night for months. She sat on my bed and read to me because I couldn't sleep and she was the only one who noticed, she shouldn't have to do that, but she did."
He pointed at Hannah. His hand shaking.
"She was ten years old reading bedtime stories to an eight-year-old because our mother couldn't get up."
Hannah's breath caught behind him. A small, sharp sound. She hadn't known he remembered. Not like this. Not in detail.
"She was everything you were supposed to be. And she was two years older than me. TWO!"
He held up two fingers. He was crying now.
"Twelve years old making sure I had clean clothes. Fourteen years old walking me to school because you were still in bed. Fourteen years old going to court to try to get custody of me with your parents, because they were tired of it too.”
Mum shook her head. Not denial. Something closer to not wanting to hear it.
Behind him, Hannah's hand went to her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking.
"Ethan—" Mum's voice barely a whisper.
"I'm not finished. I've been quiet my whole life. Quiet while you screamed at me. Quiet while you drank. Quiet while you made Hannah feel like nothing. Like she didn't exist in her own house. I will not be quiet anymore."
He stepped closer. The blood drying on his chin.
"Do you know what she was doing while you sat at the kitchen table with your bottles and cigarettes? While the bags piled up in the hallway?"
Mum's voice was tiny. "I don't..."
"You don't know!You don't fucking know! She was raising me. Being my parent. Because you couldn't. Because you were too busy dying slowly in front of us to notice you had two children."
He looked at Hannah. She was crying openly now—hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking. Silently. She met his eyes for a moment. He turned back to Mum.
"And then she left. And I think leaving was the best thing she ever did. Because she is the bestest sister I have ever had. And she deserves so much more than you have ever given her. She deserves a mother who looks at her. Who says her name out loud. Who doesn't pretend she isn't standing right there."
Hannah made a sound. Not a word. Something that came from deep in her chest. Her hand dropped from her mouth. She was looking at Ethan, not at Mum. At her brother, who had just said all of it. Every word she'd never asked him to say.
He turned back to Mum.
"Do you remember why she left?"
Mum looks at her feet.
"She just told you why she left. You heard her. Say it back."
Mum looked at Hannah. Her voice barely there. "She didn't want to be there when I died."
"That's right. And do you know what's going to kill you?"
She didn't answer. Crying now. Tears running into her mouth.
"Your drinking. The bottles from the off-licence on Bridge Street. The ones I've stood outside and priced without going in. The ones you pay for with my DLA money. The money that's supposed to help with my autism."
She stared at him.
"And the pills in your bedside drawer. I've counted them. Every week. For two years. I know what you're planning in case I leave."
Mum made a sound that wasn't a word.
His voice changed. The anger still there, but underneath it now—fear. The fear he'd been carrying alone in the hollow, in the quiet room, in his bed while she slept in the next room and he lay awake listening for her breathing.
"You want to know why I don't sleep. Why my uniform isn't perfect. Why I come to school tired. I'll tell you."
He stepped closer.
"Every night I dream of the fire…of when Dad died, but I also dream of another, do you know what that dream is?"
She couldn't answer.
"A phone call. Hannah or Nan or the hospital. Their voice wrong. They say I need to come now. It's Mum. And I know what it means. I've known since I was eight and the police came about Dad after they recovered his body in the fire."
His voice was shaking, but he didn't stop.
"I get in the taxi and the whole way there I'm thinking—this is it. The thing I've been trying to stop. The thing I've been counting bottles and pills and doing equations about. This is where I find out I failed."
The students at the gate had stopped moving.
"The doctors come out with that face. They say they've done everything. They're sorry. Your liver has failed. The damage is too much. The kindest thing is to take you off the ventilator and let you—let you—"
He stopped. His voice broke. He tried again.
"Let you slip away."
Mum's hand was over her mouth. Her eyes huge and wet.
"I don't believe them. Even in the ICU. Even seeing you in the bed. You can't talk. You can't open your eyes. There's a tube in your throat and a machine breathing for you and the only sound—the only sound is the ventilator. Going in. And out. In. And—in. And out."
He was crying openly. Tears and blood mixing on his face. He kept talking through it.
"Liver failure. From years of drinking while I sat in the next room and did nothing. While I heard you open another bottle and didn't—I didn't say anything. Because I didn't know how."
Hannah's hand found his shoulder again. She was crying harder now. Her grip tight. He didn't turn. But he didn't shrug her off either.
"Ethan—" Mum's voice was gone.
"They take the tube out. They give you something to make you sleep so you won't—so you won't suffer. And we stand there. Me and Hannah. Or just me. Watching you breathe slower and slower."
His voice dropped. The words coming in fragments now.
"I'm holding your hand. Telling you I love you. Saying—saying please don't go. Please don't leave me. I need you. I need you. And I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you know I'm there. My mother is dying and I can't—I can't stop it. I can't do anything."
"And then you take one last—" He couldn't say it. He stopped. Took a breath that shuddered through his whole body. "One last breath. And then—"
He stopped again. The word wouldn't come.
Hannah's hand tightened on his shoulder. She was crying openly. Not hiding it anymore. Her face broken. Her jaw still tight, but the tears coming freely now.
"Nothing." He got the word out. "You're gone. You're just—gone. And I'm still holding your hand and it's still warm but you're not in it anymore. You're not anywhere anymore."
His voice cracked completely. The words came out between gasps.
"And after. I walk out of the hospital. And it's still raining. Or the sun is shining. And the world just—it just goes on. Cars driving past. People walking dogs. Someone laughing at a bus stop. And my mother is dead and the world doesn't—it doesn't fucking care. As if you didn't matter. As if you were never here. As if you weren't my entire—"
He couldn't finish. His shoulders shook. Hannah's hand was still on his shoulder. He felt her move closer. Her other hand found his—the one not holding Mum's. She squeezed. Once. Hard.
Mum was crying. Her face a ruin. The wall gone. She looked at her children—her son falling apart in front of her, her daughter holding him together—and she couldn't speak.
Ethan took a breath. Then another. He found his voice again.
"I can't live in a world where my mother doesn't exist. I don't know how. I don't know how to wake up and know you're not there. I don't know how to walk past your door and know you're not behind it."
He reached for her hands. Took them. The gesture surprised them both. Her hands cold and trembling. His blood drying on her palm.
"That's why I stayed. Not the DLA. Not because I have nowhere else. I stayed because every night I see you die. And I think—if I'm there, I can stop it. I can pour the bottles away. I can count the pills. I can be the reason you don't—"
His voice broke.
"I thought I can be the reason you stay alive. Because if I'm not there, you'll die. And if you die, I don't know what I'll do. You're my mum and I love you and I'm so scared. Every minute. Every day. I'm so scared you're going to leave me like Dad left me and I can't do that again. I can't."
He was crying too hard to speak. His shoulders shaking. His knuckles white on her hands.
Mum was crying too. The wall down completely. She was just a woman in a car park, her son's blood on her hand, her whole life a ruin she had built.
"Ethan. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Please let me—"
She tried to pull him toward her.
He pulled his hands away. Gently. Absolutely.
"No."
The word quiet. Final.
"Sorry doesn't fix it. I've heard sorry a hundred times. The bottles are still in the kitchen. The pills are still in the drawer. The nightmare is still in my head."
He straightened. Wiped his face with his sleeve.
"I've done the maths. On my own. Inputs and outputs. The money, the bottles. What happens if I stay, if I leave. They all end the same. You die. Whether I stay or leave, you die. Me staying makes it slower. Me leaving makes it faster. The end is the same."
He looked at her.
"The equation on the board this morning. 178 steps, peak 190,996. That was me. I did it in three minutes. Mrs Daley asked and I lied. I've been lying since Year 6 because I didn't want you to cry. Every time I'm good at something, you cry because Dad would have been proud and Dad isn't here. I can't carry that anymore. I can't carry you and me and Hannah and the house and the bottles and the nightmares. I'm thirteen. I'm just thirteen."
He stepped back.
"But the equation that matters—the one I've been doing over and over—is the one where you die. And the answer is always the same. I can't save you. Only you can save you. And you won't, both equations end the same way and I hate it."
Mum reached for him. "I'll try. I'll really try. I'll get help—"
"Don't promise. You promised after Hannah left. After the court case. After the school sent the letter. Nothing ever changes."
He stepped further back. Out of reach.
"I'm done. I'm going to Jamie's tonight. Tomorrow night I'm leaving. Nan and Grandad's. I'm not coming back."
The words fell into the car park.
"It's up to you. I'm not your parent. I'm not your carer. I'm your son. And I wish—" His voice broke. "I wish you loved yourself enough to be there for us. Not just me. Her too. She's been waiting for years."
He turned. Walked toward the gate. Back straight. Face a ruin. He didn't look back.
Hannah was still there. Crying silently—the tears that had started when Ethan stepped between her and the slap, that had fallen while he listed everything she'd done, that had come harder when he couldn't finish his sentences and she'd had to hold his hand to keep him standing. She straightened. Looked at Mum standing there with the blood on her palm.
She didn't hug her. But she stopped in front of her.
"I never stopped loving you."
Mum looked up.
"I just wish you loved yourself more. Because you're still my mum. I still need you. Even after everything."
Mum's face broke. A raw sound came out of her. She reached for Hannah. Hands trembling, stained.
Hannah let Mum's hands rest on her shoulders. Held the moment. Then stepped back.
"I have to go with him."
Mum nodded. Couldn't speak.
Hannah turned. Followed Ethan toward the gate. Didn't look back.
Mum stood alone in the car park.
The teachers at the windows—Mr Andrews, the others—were still there. Some of them were crying. Mrs Daley was no longer at the window. She was inside, on the phone, doing what she was required by law to do.
The students by the gate had gone very quiet. One of them—a girl Ethan's age—was wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
The countdown screen on the bus shelter cycled. WHO YOU REALLY ARE — EPISODE THREE. 1 DAY.
Mum looked down at her hand. The blood on her palm. Ethan's blood. She stared at it. She didn't wipe it away.
She stood there for a long moment. The sun was in her eyes. The afternoon was warm and ordinary and indifferent. The world was going on around her as if nothing had happened.
Then, slowly, very slowly, she began to walk home.
Alone.
The car park was very quiet. The countdown screen cycled again.
1 DAY.5Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk86c8F4hVg
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