Andrea was in her fourth year of St Trinian's. It was the easter holidays. Most of the girls were jetting off on exotic holidays to exotic places. She meanwhile, was in a small hospital room, sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair and staring at the wall.

They'd thought that her father was doing well, even that there was still a chance that he would live past the end of the year. But then he'd relapsed, and he'd been rushed to hospital.

Andrea spent as long as she could with him every day, although he was usually asleep or too ill to really converse with. On many occasions, fellow emos invited her to meet up. Kelly texted once. But she always denied. She didn't bother with excuses, but she didn't confide in anyone about her father's cancer. They'd just have to deal with rejection on her part. Because what was important was that her father stayed alive, or if not, that she was there with him when he died.

It was boring, a lot. On many occasions nurses came in and tried to get her to leave, or sometimes gave her a book to read. But she didn't. Her attention was solely on her father. After about a day in the hospital, she started talking to him. For several hours a day, she'd talk to him. About random things. Whatever she could think of. Her friends, her artwork, her cigarettes, how much she hated slutty bitchy chavs and when the toaster wasn't working. Sometimes he listened, other times she couldn't be sure whether he even realised she was there.

On Black Friday, at 10:42am, her father died. She held his hand as he drifted away, as the heartbeat monitor went crazy before turning completely still.

Then she screamed and cried, tried to stab the doctor with her house keys.

A social worker came to pick her up and take her of to some care home place. They couldn't restrain her there, either; she was the typical terribly behaved parentless kid, getting into fights and all the rest of it.

Nobody wanted her to stay there. So they decided to ship her back to St Trinian's for the week left of the holidays. At least she'd be left in peace.

The day before she returned, she felt the worst. It was sinking in, that he was gone, and she couldn't get rid of the relentless pain in her chest. She went to get a tattoo of a raven on the back of her neck, determined to distract herself from the mental pain by putting herself through physical pain. It didn't help. If anything, it made it worse.

Andrea took a taxi back to school the next day.