Mr Hanssen strode between the rows of desks as the students of class 12Y1 leant over their speech projects busily filling parts in. There was a buzzing monotone of voices and giggles from some of the more immature, unfocused sixth formers, but then he approached Ben's desk.
Ben sat alone in class; he'd been upset when he first found out that Max and Iain, his two boyfriends, had been put in the other class, but he also found it was easier being the "odd" one in the class as it helped him focus with less distraction, and it meant he had a desk to himself, since no one wanted to sit with him. That's what he told himself anyway – he secretly missed being able to muck around with them once in a while, or even sit in silence, enjoying the comfort of their being nearby.
"How are you doing Ben?" Mr Hanssen crouched beside Ben's desk slightly, scanning the pages of notes spilling across the seat beside and the entire space on the desk.
"Good Sir, thank you" Ben replied politely.
"What do you plan on speaking about?" The students had to prepare a speech on a matter of importance, in order to inform their peers. "Unless you'd rather I get a proper first impression of course?"
Ben liked Mr Hanssen; he always let the students make their own decisions with their work, and that left a lot of room for creativity. "It… it's going to be unique" Ben smiled and Mr Hanssen looked at him with admiration.
"You never fail to impress Ben…"
Ben thanked Mr Hanssen, who nodded and continued to prowl around the classroom, prompting people back on class. It was their last lesson before performing their speeches and though Ben was on-track, he couldn't help but feel nervous.
When the bell rang eventually, he waited until the other students had left the class, before slowly ordering his sheets and clipping them into his folder.
"You okay Ben?" Mr Hanssen asked, coming over to where the boy stood, and helping him stack the loose sheets. He kept his promise and didn't read anything, since Ben had wanted to keep his speech private.
"Yeah" Ben breathed, "Just nervous…"
"It'll be okay once you're up there" Mr Hanssen assured him, "The waiting period's the worst – don't suppose you want to do a run-through?"
"I'd rather not… If that's okay?"
"Of course it is, have a good day" Mr Hanssen smiled at Ben, who swung his rucksack onto his back and left the room, returning his teacher's smile on his way out.
At the end of their last lesson, Max and Lofty met up with Iain, before starting the walk home together.
"Is everything okay Loft?" Max asked.
"Yeah… y've been a li'l off lately mate" Iain agreed, slipping an arm around his boyfriend's shoulders.
"You're only this quiet when you're hurt darling… Has someone hurt you?" Max's tone grew more worried.
"No, I'm okay honest" Lofty squeezed Max's hand back, "I just… y'know I'm worried about the speeches… What are you guys doing for them?"
"Emergency services"
"Water aid"
Iain's response didn't surprise Lofty; it was well-known throughout the college that Iain was going to go on to paramedic training once he'd finished his A-levels, but Max's had him stumped.
"Why wate-"
"Shut up" Max joked, "Miss Freeman said racing wasn't an important topic and she gave me a list to choose from… It seemed like the easiest one"
"Oh God" Lofty laughed, and Iain took a step back, bending double with laughter.
"What's so funny?" Max whined, "I don't get it guys" He watched helplessly as his boyfriends struggled to stay standing. "It's a very serious topic actually!" Max took a more serious tone to try and stop their hysterics.
"Yeah but" Lofty panted, "You were the kid…" He propped himself up against Max, "The kid who was scared of water!"
"Oh God" Iain breathed as his laughter slowed, "Mate ya told me ya was doin' it on the 'omeless"
"Yeah well, Lofty seemed worried so I decided to be truthful." Max stated haughtily, "The homeless were taken." He sounded disappointed.
"Is that s'posed ta be some kinda sick joke?" Iain laughed.
"Oh my God, you two are insufferable!"
"Oh Max, we were joking" Lofty spoke more softly.
"So was I!" Max let go of his boyfriend for a split-second, before catching him again.
"Hey!"
"Leave my Loft alone!" Iain pretended to be annoyed, "Need we remind ya how ya couldn' swim til' last year?"
"Oh God, don't start that again" Lofty thought back to the year before where they'd gone sailing together and with his dyspraxia, and Iain sharing a boat with Dylan, their boat had capsized, forcing Max to swim in some way. Max had sworn never again after that, and Lofty hadn't disagreed. "Let's just go home" Lofty laughed, shaking his head. "Back to mine?"
"Sure" Max wrapped an arm protectively around each of his boyfriends as they walked the rest of the way to the harbour.
That night, Dylan had agreed Max and Iain could stay over since they were so relaxed together. Now, Iain lay sprawled across the sofa with Max sitting in front of it, playing with the top of Max's hair. Lofty was curled up in a blanket at the other end, his head lilting as Hot Fuzz played on the TV. None of them were really watching and Iain couldn't believe Lofty still had the capacity to fall asleep at 9pm. He paused the movie.
"Max. Remember when we used to do this?" He laughed. Max turned, only to be tapped with a pillow.
"I remember!" Max stood, grabbing a pillow from the chair and pushing Iain with it, who stood with his own.
"Let the pillow war commence!" Iain cried. Lofty shuffled back some more and watched adoringly, yet didn't join in.
He never had for fear of hurting someone or breaking something, but he had missed watching Max and Iain doing so. He laughed as Max got Iain over the head and they fell onto the sofa laughing.
Dylan stuck his head around the door and smiled too; it had been his husband, David, who'd taught them how to pillow fight as kids, and he thought back to how David used to carry Lofty on his shoulders, who didn't want to join in bless him, and commentate, while Dylan moved things away from the battle-zone for fear of them breaking.
"Be careful" He called to them, before making his way to his own room with his lesson plans and a cup of tea.
Lofty continued to watch fondly until his two boyfriends collapsed exhausted back onto the sofa.
"I won!" Max taunted.
"No ya didn't ya scrawny one" Iain retorted, ticking Max a little.
"Get off" Max pleaded, wriggling around, and Lofty joined in, grabbing one of his feet and tickling until Max was gasping for breath. He pulled away nervously.
"You okay?"
"Yup!" Max gave him a goofy grin, before pulling him down on top of him for a hug and pressing a kiss to his forehead. Iain grinned at them and they curled up on the sofa, turning the TV off altogether. They slept in a tangled mess on the sofa that night.
Tuesday morning dawned and Lofty awoke, Iain's arms wrapped around him protectively; he felt safer in his boyfriend's embrace and he glanced to the clock on the wall. 6:30am… He had half an hour before he had to be up, and he decided to take his chance, sandwiched between Iain and Max, to snuggle further into the warmth.
"I got ya Loft…" Iain whispered, pulling Lofty closer and pressing a soft kiss to the back of his neck sleepily. Lofty curled into the warmth, his arms pressed against Max's chest; it rose and fell gently as Max slept and Lofty himself was lulled back into a doze for the next half hour.
Dylan wandered into the kitchen and opened the living room door, revealing his son and his two boyfriends curled up together. Iain held Lofty and Max close, protecting them almost it seemed, and Dylan couldn't help but snap a photo to send to Dixie later.
Once they reached the college gates, Lofty could feel his heart beating faster and he was secretly glad he hadn't been able to eat much for nerves that morning.
Max nudged him. "You okay? You've barely spoken today…"
"Yeah, just nervous y'know?"
"Well ya'll get ta meet up with us after yeah?" Iain chipped in, "Cafeteria after first period?"
"Sure" Lofty smiled up at the taller boy and Max squeezed hi for support. "Good luck with your speeches!" The bell rang and Iain and Max wandered off in the opposite direction to Lofty; both were far more confident with their speeches than him, clearly.
Ben tried to shrug off the nerves and imagine it an ordinary day, but he couldn't. As a last resort, he took one of the earphones from his jacket pocket and hooked it in his ear, and with a few taps of his iPod, Sia was blasting as he made his way to class.
He had to do this for two reasons. He didn't have a choice, and it was important.
He didn't have a choice.
As he reached the classroom, Lofty removed his earphones and put his iPod on silent, taking his seat at the back of the room, alone. Keeping his head down, he removed the folder from his rucksack and placed it on the table, flipping through his notes a final time as the last of the students filed in.
Once they were quiet, Mr Hanssen called the first name on his list. "Louis Fairhead?"
Louis sauntered to the front of the room and began a speech on legalisation of marijuana, and unsurprisingly, was very popular amongst the majority of the class. Lofty focused intently on his friend's speech, and if he was honest, despite the topic, Louis was very good at public speaking.
Almost everyone applauded as Louis swaggered back to his seat – he was riveting in his speech, despite his mostly-cruel nature outside the classroom, and the whole class knew it.
"Ben? You're up next" Mr Hanssen smiled supportively as Lofty did the complete opposite of Louis and stumbled to the front of the room, tripping over a chair leg and nearly landing face-down on the floor in the process. Someone sniggered and Ben groaned inwardly. This wasn't exactly the way he wanted to begin.
He took centre classroom and tried to ignore the thirty staring faces.
"Abuse." He began, feeling his heart fall as twenty-odd faces turned away, bored already. He nearly gave up, and would have left had it not been for the memory of the past month spent preparing avidly for this moment. If Max was going to do a speech on water aid, Lofty could do a speech on abuse.
"Not really a topic widely spoken about, is it?" Ben asked.
A hand was raised in the audience, but he ignored it for the time being. "Child abuse-"
"Why are you talking about abuse?" Someone interrupted. Before Mr Hanssen could interject, Lofty snapped back:
"Because-"
"Look if someone's being abused, they just tell someone and problem solved!" The mouthy boy in the second row high-fived the other boy sat next to Louis, who stared back at Ben, a look of pain smattered across his face. Ben could see the apology in his friend's eyes, and it fuelled him on.
"You know what." Lofty's tone turned angry and he spoke loudly, cutting through the giggles and hum of the class. Everyone's attention snapped back to the front of the room and the determined expression on the face of the usually so quiet, gentle boy.
"When I was a kid, I used to sleep on the floor all the time!" He threw his cue cards at the floor, "It wasn't more comfortable than my bed, but at least I felt safe that way – because, while you were all probably scared of the 'monsters under your bed'" He made quotation marks in the air, "I was scared of the one that lurked downstairs."
Thirty pairs of eyes were locked onto his, but for once, he didn't shy away from it. Mr Hanssen stood frozen, mouth slightly open, one arm extended slightly. He sat back down, folding his arms across his chest. The pride he felt for Ben, in his overpowering the class was enormous, and he wasn't about to stop him.
"She… Yes – she, was my keeper – I relied on my monster to keep me alive, and as long as I had one ear to the floor, I knew when she was coming. Shes can be abusers too."
His statements had the class trapped, frozen. "You can't always speak out; imagine someone had a gun permanently trained on you, but they were your only source of food. You wouldn't tell anyone about the threat posed, until you knew they'd be able to give you food too. And then there's bridging the gap, finding a way to tell someone when the person isn't watching. If they aren't watching, they can't pull the trigger right?" He paused for breath, picking up his cue cards. "It takes courage and skill."
No one moved.
"You know, I don't need these" Lofty laughed tightly, waving his cue cards, "I've got scars I can tell… I've been through the care system for the past ten years; I know protocol, and adoption papers and emergency carers."
A girl in the third row raised her hand shyly and Lofty realised he hadn't seen her before, not that he'd been the most observant since September.
"Yeah?"
"H-how did you tell someone?"
At the end of the lesson, Lofty approached the shy girl's desk, a smile on his face that had been there since his speech ended half an hour ago reappearing.
"Wanna join me and my friends for lunch?"
"You have friends?" The girl asked, "Oh sorry I didn't mean that to be rude…"
"No it's okay" Lofty laughed it off, "I know what you mean, it's hard to make friends…"
"Yeah" The girl trailed off, pushing her fringe back and re-checking the clasp on her bag.
"Join me" Lofty repeated himself, "I'm gay by the way, that wasn't a…"
"I know"
"Ah okay… I'm really bad at this sort of thing…"
"Nah, it's nice to have someone voluntarily speak to me"
"Join us?"
"You're starting to sound like some kind of tribe leader now" The girl giggled, "I'm Alicia…"
"I'm Ben" Lofty smiled back at her, "Come on, it's gonna be second period before we're out of this room at this rate."
She laughed again and they walked together, joking until they reached the cafeteria, where Lofty promptly introduced her to Max, Iain and Robyn.