She swallowed her shame. Regardless of why he was here now, she needed help.

‘I have to get home,’ she said.

Wesley stepped closer and she flinched away, only for him to move past her and check the stalls. Why didn’t he say anything? She reached for his arm, craving its fixedness and desperate despite everything for his attention. The sight of her translucent hand, like paper held to light, made her snatch it away before she could make contact.

When he finally turned back they were close enough to waltz, but no sooner had his eyes found Kat than they grew large and unfocused, sliding away to look somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Although her reflection showed she had faded but a little, he was unable to see her at all.

The scream had come from inside the toilets. There was nowhere else. It had cut off sharply as if disturbed when Wesley opened the door. And there was her bag, discarded, MacBook and make-up scattered.

It felt like a trick, as if somebody was watching and recording his reaction. Twice when he turned his head he thought somebody stood at the edges of his vision, only to vanish if he tried to focus. He was sure he could feel another person in the room. Something like vertigo, a sense that the rules of the universe were unravelling, lurched inside him.

Quickly, before anybody could catch him there, Wesley scooped the contents of her bag back inside and gathered it up. It was a lifeline, an excuse to find her again. A chance, perhaps, to sate the guilt that was beginning to gnaw at his heart.

Kat followed a few paces behind as he returned to the corridor, only dimly aware that he had taken her bag. Keeping up with Wesley as he hurried down the stairs offered a linear future, one she didn’t need to decide for herself, if only for a few minutes. Long enough to get out of there.

At the bottom floor, Wesley turned a corner and came to a halt. Kat huddled against the wall as a familiar imperious voice rang along the corridor.

‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were heading for the exit.’

Kat peeked around the corner. The way out was blocked by Miss Jalloh, hands on her abundant hips, hunkered low in a way that suggested she was perfectly willing to tackle him bodily if necessary.

‘I was, uh . . .’ Wesley stammered, and Kat saw him push her bag out of sight behind his back.

‘Mr Graham, you realise there’s no excuse I’ll accept from you right now?’

‘I do now, miss.’

‘You know that I know you don’t have final period free today, so there’s no reason in the world you should be heading outside right now.’

‘I know, miss, but I was just looking for—’

Miss Jalloh held up a hand to silence him, fingers splayed, before counting them off one by one. Kat had seen her perform this trick before: the moment she folded her little finger into her palm the bell rang, electronic pips repeating throughout the building.

‘How do you do that?’ said Wesley.

Miss Jalloh smiled sweetly and answered by pointing him back along the corridor. ‘To final period, if you please.’

The school had stirred to life, chairs scraping and voices tumbling over each other, the shouts of teachers’ final instructions competing with the excited babble of their students. Kat fought the urge to run. Stepping out from the wall, Miss Jalloh’s all-seeing eyes flicked to her, and Kat braced herself for punishment or fright. Neither came – almost at once the teacher’s attention reverted to Wesley.

‘Sorry, miss,’ he said, and turned around to pass Kat without so much as a glance.

The classrooms behind her boiled over into the corridor. Kat waited for somebody to notice. She would almost have welcomed a gasp or scream, anything but the vacant tide that broke around her, as if she were a boulder in the flow of a river, unworthy of attention. Smothering her rising panic, she hurried past the unseeing Miss Jalloh and out of the building.

Then she ran across the car park to swipe her pass at the gate. Ran towards home until her lungs burned and a sharp pain in her side pulled her up short. Doubled over, she tried not to see the pavement through her ankles, the thread of her jeans embroidered in her hands.

A breeze made something rustle on her back. Kat reached under her arm to find a piece of paper stuck to her blouse with chewing gum. It was folded in half once, and inside was a scrawled, smudged message.

I see you.
[email protected]

Kat clutched the message to her chest.