Page 72 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

The car winds its way through narrow roads lined with bracken, branches and brambles. The most rural roads are simple dirt tracks, and Finlay has to slow down behind a pair of meandering, wandering sheep. The journey almost comes to an abrupt halt by a reckless roe deer springing onto the road.

For a good hour or so, it seems like we’re the only vehicle in existence, the only people crazy enough to make this pilgrimage. The weather is changeable — beaming sunlight one mile, overcast the next, and rain spattering the windows five miles after that. Finlay adjusts the car’s sun visor multiple times.

I admire the bleak desolation of Scotland in the rain, and remain constantly surprised by its vivid beauty in the sun. We’re surrounded by towering green moors and glens, thick ancient woodland, impressively large rock-faces with stones that drop precariously close to us as we drive past.

It’s a landscape unlike any I’ve seen, and I’m fascinated.

We enter small, forgotten villages with cream-white houses and thatched roofs, surrounded by grass at least knee-high.

And then the roads open up. Main roads, heavily tarmacked with actual paint markings, begin to appear. Even the highway is pretty, surrounded by the lush green of nearby forests, trees shooting into the sky like arrowheads. We pass bulky campervan after bulky campervan, and Finlay heaves a weary sigh to himself.

Signs direct vehicles to all kinds of uniquely named places. Kindallachan, Ballinluig, Logierait. I turn their syllables over in my mouth and wonder how badly I’m butchering their pronunciations.

At some point, Finlay grows tired of the silence and snaps on the radio. Trashy pop music blares out, something highly original about everyone partying all night, and it’s the first time I note Rory swiveling his head around to shoot a dry look at Finlay. Finlay doesn’t even have to check to know to change the station.

Eventually it settles on classical music. Sweet instrumental symphonies bloom from the speakers, surrounding the car with its own sense of inner peace. It’s as though it’s the soundtrack of our lives on this road trip nobody asked for.

And all the while, my hand tightens around Luke’s.

“You okay?” I ask him quietly, the soaring violins concealing my voice.

He meets my gaze, his dark eyes dull and uncertain, but in the end he nods. “I thought I would be nothing without a crown,” he murmurs, slow and soft enough that only I can make him out. “But as annoyed as everyone is at me, they have chosen friendship over politics. They still stuck by me.” He squeezes my hand. “Youhave still stuck by me, and that means more than I can possibly say.”

I grin at him, watching as he unrolls the adjacent window.

Finlay got him wrong. He’s a braggy show-off about his family and connections, for sure. But when it comes to affairs of the heart, he’s endearingly shy. He’s quiet. He’s not one for big, impassioned declarations like Finlay, nor of dark, teasing promises like Rory. He’s sweet and he’s private and he’s stroking my hand. It feels like a victory.

The air skims his tight curls, and it’s like finally we can all breathe. Maybe that’s all that needed to be said. Some actual proper honesty dredged from the vulnerabilities in his soul.

Finlay’s a surprisingly skilled driver, the journey so smooth and painless that at some point I feel safe enough to nod off. I awake later with a start to discover we’re sitting at traffic lights in the middle of a large town. Civilization. Gray concrete buildings, roads with potholes, boarded-up stores with letting signs that dot along the main streets. Everything else is either a betting store, a charity store, or a takeout restaurant.

It’s a world away from the natural beauty of the Highlands. This one is entirely man-made.

“You couldn’t have taken the scenic route?” Rory drawls, gazing around with distaste at the town.

Finlay just shrugs. “Diversions. Besides, I think it’s good for the sassenach tae see another side o’ the country. Consider it an education.”

“What, that your precious government is shit?” Rory mutters.

“We’d be less shite if Westminster gave us mair powers,” Finlay says easily.

Men in stained tracksuits stagger around, off their heads on unknown substances. People scream at each other in the open, tripping over battered-looking homeless people slumped, dead or asleep, in the doorways of shuttered shops. Sirens shriek. Horns beep, engines vroom, the traffic is in organized chaos as it performs its snakelike dance through this neglected town, forgotten in different ways from the postcard beauty of a village we’d passed earlier. Luke carefully rolls up his window, leaning back from the glass as though attempting to make himself disappear into his seat.

We pass a town square with flowers and compost ripped onto the ground, where different groups of masked, neon-haired protesters are angrily chanting. They hold placards —Fuck The Royals, Fuck The System, Oscar Munro Is A Pure Fucking Fanny.A line of mounted police keep them contained, their shields up, horses tense and watchful and ready for war. Someone sprays a blood-redAntiroon the statue of an old king, and two police officers wrestle a protester to the ground as he tries to climb it.

“Has something happened?” I ask in confusion, watching as pockets of fighting break out among the protesters. Bottles are thrown, smashing onto the ground, one almost knocking a police officer’s helmet off.

Finlay quirks a humorless smile, his eyes focused on the road ahead. “This is the authentic Scotland. It’s how the real world is nowadays. Ye wouldnae know it if ye didnae step ootside the Lochkelvin bubble every once in a while.”

I have to hold back my shiver. The world outside reminds me of the worst parts of back home. Perhaps, in that case, some things are universal — discontentment, disconsolation, disconnection.

A short distance away, fire rages among discarded tires in the middle of barren land. Middle-aged men drink from glass bottles and smash them into the core of the fire with a loud cheer, the glass tinkling onto the ground. Every time, the flames leap higher. At first I can’t tell if they’re protesters or just people fucking shit up, but when someone starts singingGod Save the King, others promptly join in, pulling out Union Jack flags from nowhere.

“Whit a fuckin’ state,” Finlay scoffs. “This is your fan club, by the way, Luke. Pissed-up gammons on the lash. They probably care more about fitbaw than you.”

Luke sits in surly silence, resolutely saying nothing at all.

I feel like this is unfair when I just saw someone at the other protest launch a bottle at a police officer like it’d been a missile. “Both sides are as bad as each other.”

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