Page 6 of Spearcrest Knight

“I’ve scheduled your sessions for Tuesdays and Thursdays, six in the afternoon. How do you feel about that?”

I check my planner. In between chess club, my study timetable, and the lower school book club I run, my time is already slipping away from me. Still, it’s too late to turn back now, and I have every intention of getting into every university I apply for, and this is my ticket.

“Alright, Miss Bailey, that’s fine, I’ve made a note.”

“You absolute angel!” Miss Bailey exclaims, typing into her computer. “You’re quite possibly saving my life! Alright, I’ve booked you in. You won’t start until half-term, so you get to have those afternoons for yourself now.”

I nod and make a note of that too. Miss Bailey beams at me. “You remind me so much of me when I was your age, you know."

I try to hide how much it pleases me to hear this. I tuck my hair behind my ears, a little self-consciously, then put my planner away and stand.

“If I grow up to be like you, Miss Bailey, I would be pretty proud.”

She laughs.

“What! A boring old English teacher! No, you’ve got a much more impressive future ahead of you, I can tell. Well, have a good term, my darling.”

“Thanks, Miss Bailey.”

I stop at the door.

“Who will it be, by the way?”

“Your lucky tutee?”

I laugh.

“Yes, my lucky tutee.”

“Mm,” she checks her computer. “Evan Knight.”

My entire body becomes entombed in ice.

“Who?” I ask even though I heard perfectly well.

“Evan Knight,” she looks up from her computer. “Do you know him?”

The ice of which I am now made cracks and shatters into splinters. I can barely move.

“No,” I say weakly. “See you later, Miss Bailey.”

And then I run away, trying to keep the bits of me together long enough that Miss Bailey doesn’t see me fall apart.

And then all the pain from Evan’s words this morning, from every cruel thing he’s ever said to me, and the oldest pain of all, the pain of betrayal, all come rushing back like a blow.

The First Time Sophie Met Evan

It’smythirdweekat Spearcrest and it’s been raining the entire time. I know because I spend almost every lesson with my gaze out of the window. I stare at the looming tree line, the dull wall of shapeless clouds, the mist clinging to the corners of the building like a tepid breath on a cold day.

A voice pulls me back to reality. It repeats a question for the third time.

I sigh and turn. “No, my parents aren’t cleaners.”

“Oh.”

The girl next to me has long, perfectly curled hair, thick eyelashes, and clear skin. She doesn’t look like the Year 9s in my old school used to look. She definitely doesn’t look like me. Her manners are polished and she speaks with a sort of thoughtful confusion which I’m sure allows her to get away with a lot.

“But they do work for the school, right?” she asks.

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