It was through Lee and Rob that I met Pete. Lee was my cousin and Rob was Pete’s brother, but despite being in the same year as me at Moorside High, I only knew Pete from a distance.
During lessons, my head would be kept low, obscured by textbooks and the arms of kids who’d the answers to everything. Whereas Pete’s place in the classroom was generally outside of it. Exiled to the inhospitable wastes of the corridor. Cast out for some minor atrocity against the curriculum. An errant swear word or precisely targeted paper missile.
At break times, he’d stalk the periphery paying the rest of us little attention, except to shake his head at our games of football, smirking as we charged about in a cloud of gravel. It would be outside school where we finally met, two fifteen-year-olds far beyond the gates and the bell, and not a teacher or stripy tie in sight.
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