Page 1 of Never a Hero

one

‘Don’t you slow down!’ the coach shouted. One of the boys had turned up late, and now the whole football team was suffering for it. From the fence line, Joan watched them stumble past in yet another lap. Most of the boys were gasping, but at the front of the pack, Nick’s pace was steady, as if he could have kept this up for days.

Go home, Joan told herself. She’d been weak today. She’d walked down here after school, hoping for a glimpse of him. Well, now she’d had it, and as always it felt like a punch to the gut. He doesn’t remember you. He doesn’t know you anymore.

‘All right!’ the coach shouted. ‘I think you’ve had enough.’

There were groans of relief, and the boys staggered to a stop. Some dropped to the ground, exhausted. Others grasped their knees, trying to catch their breath. Still a few strides ahead, Nick slowed to a jog, and then turned to walk back to his teammates.

He glanced idly toward the fence. Joan’s heart stuttered as his gaze skated over and beyond her without interest or recognition.

‘Nick!’ one of the boys panted from the ground. ‘You gotta keep up, mate. Team captain can’t be trailing behind us all the time.’

Nick laughed and went over to help the boy up. ‘Need a hand, Jameson?’

‘I need a defibrillator,’ the boy grumbled. But he gripped Nick’s offered hand and struggled up.

Joan’s breath caught at Nick’s unguarded smile. He’d always been so solemn when she’d known him. He’d had the world on his shoulders. It occurred to Joan now that she didn’t know him anymore either—not this Nick.

She felt that familiar pang of longing for the boy who wasn’t here. She suppressed it ruthlessly. That Nick was gone, and she shouldn’t want him back. This was Nick as he should have been. A guy with an ordinary life.

Go home, she told herself again. And this time, she hefted her schoolbag higher and turned away from the fence.

It was mid-November, and the trees were nearly bare. Cold cut through Joan’s trousers as she walked across the empty school grounds. After hours, the whole place had an abandoned quality. The teachers’ car park was desolate—all concrete and patchy weeds. Joan made her way through it, past the library and down to the back field.

Joan’s phone buzzed: a message from Dad. Nearly home? I made pineapple tarts. A photo arrived. Flaky pastries cooling on a rack. Look professional, huh?!

He’d been checking in on Joan a lot lately; he knew something was wrong. ‘You seem really quiet,’ he’d said to her last night. ‘Everything okay at school? With your friends?’

Sometimes, Joan wished she could just tell him the truth.

Gran died, Dad. They all died. Gran and Aunt Ada and Uncle Gus and Bertie.

But she couldn’t tell him that. Because they hadn’t died. Only Joan remembered that night. Only she remembered Gran’s last desperate moments and the thick warmth of Gran’s blood; the metallic smell of it. Joan had pressed against the wound, trying to hold Gran’s body together, and Gran’s breaths had rattled, further and further apart until they’d stopped.

Joan breathed in now, letting the cold air catch in her lungs. None of that had happened, she reminded herself. Gran and the rest of the Hunts were in London—just an hour away by train. They were fine.

Joan messaged Dad back. Looks great! Be home soon. Then she shoved her hands into her pockets. It was getting colder. Above, the sky was heavy with darkening clouds. There was a storm coming.

She fought the wind as she crossed the field. Her hair whipped around her face, and her blue blazer billowed. She shouldn’t have stayed back for that glimpse of Nick. Seeing him—being unseen by him—had thrown her back into that first shock of being in the world without him. There was no place or time she could go to find him. He was gone.

Lightning flashed and the air sharpened. Joan walked faster, absently counting the seconds. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand … Thunder rolled at the count of five. The storm was maybe fifteen minutes away. She shrugged out of her blazer and shoved it into her bag. She didn’t mind the rain, but she only had the one school blazer, and she didn’t fancy wearing it again tomorrow, damp.

She was near the gate when the next flash of lightning came. One one thousand, two—

A familiar voice sounded behind her, startling her. ‘Excuse me, I have—’ The rest of his words were drowned out by thunder. Joan’s heartbeat sounded even louder. Nick.

It wasn’t him, she told herself. She was just hearing what she wanted to hear.

But when she turned, it was Nick, alone on the field with her, his pace easy and smooth, as familiar as his voice. His dark hair was cut differently now—swept over his brow—but his eyes were just as they’d always been: as sincere and honest as an old-fashioned hero, the kind who rescued cats from trees and people from burning buildings.

For a moment, Joan could almost imagine it really was him—her Nick, with all his memories intact, coming after her because he’d remembered her. Her feelings were a tangled skein of trepidation, fear, and a horrible hope.

He stopped, just out of arm’s reach. Joan hadn’t been this close to him since the night in the library when they’d kissed. That night, the other Nick’s existence had ended. No, she corrected herself. That night she’d ended him. She’d chosen her family over him. Monsters over the hero.

Whatever was on her face, it made Nick’s expression change to apologetic. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’ He held out her phone. ‘I saw you drop this back there.’

Joan searched his face. Now that he was closer, she couldn’t fool herself. He was looking right at her, and there was no recognition in his eyes at all. This version of him even held himself differently. The other Nick had carried himself with a certain dangerous tension: the understanding that he might have to fight and kill. This Nick’s stance was open and untrained. Joan should have felt relieved, she knew, but she was hit with an ache of grief like a physical wound.

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