Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
KATE
The corridor outside the SEN hub is already loud when I unlock the door.
Not chaotic, just layered with the clatter of lockers slamming and trainers squeaking.
A Year Eight student is shouting that someone’s stolen his tie.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, and I pause for half a second before stepping fully inside.
It’s instinct now, that breath, the moment of stillness before I become everyone else’s steady point.
“Morning, Miss Matthews!”
I turn and smile at Alfie barrelling towards me, his backpack half open, his shoelaces untied, and his fringe flopping in his eyes. His ADHD diagnosis means he has endless energy and zero volume control. There is no off switch for Alfie.
“Morning, Alfie,” I say, gently catching his shoulders before he bumps into me. “Walking feet,” I remind him with a smile.
He grins. “Sorry. I forgot.”
“I know.” I crouch slightly so we’re eye level. “What’s the plan today?”
He squints at the ceiling as though he’s checking a mental whiteboard. “Maths. Then science. Then… I can’t remember.”
I tap my temple. “Remember, we wrote it down yesterday.”
“Oh!” He digs into his bag, pulling out the laminated timetable we made together. It’s creased already, so I smooth it out between us.
“Maths. Break. Science. Lunch. English.” I point to each coloured block. “You can do this.” He nods seriously, as if I’ve just handed him a mission briefing. “I’ll check in with you at break,” I add. He beams and dashes off, already distracted by something shiny down the corridor.
Inside the SEN room, I switch on the soft lamp in the corner rather than the overhead lights.
It makes the space feel gentler. Beanbags are in one corner, and visual timetables adorn the wall by the door.
A small weighted blanket is neatly folded over the back of a chair.
On the table is a little basket filled with fidget toys.
Sophie is already there, rocking slightly in her seat, fingers pressed against her ears. I lower my voice automatically. “Morning, Soph.” She doesn’t look at me, but she nods once. “Too loud?” I ask gently. That earns me another nod.
I close the door properly and move to adjust the blinds a little more, reducing the glare from the morning light. The world outside shrinks, and the room feels smaller, somehow safer. “Do you want five minutes here before registration?” I ask.
She whispers, “Yes.”
“Okay.” I don’t fuss or pressure Sophie. That’s the trick with most of them. Not forcing eye contact or demanding explanations, but adjusting the world slightly so it doesn’t overwhelm them.
The quiet calm doesn’t last long. By mid-morning, a chair is flying across my classroom.
“Okay,” I say quietly, like he’s just dropped his pen. “We’re having big feelings.”
Connor swears under his breath. I go to perch on the edge of his desk, keeping my movements slow and deliberate and my voice even. “You want to tell me what just happened?”
Connor doesn’t answer, but his jaw trembles. He’s fourteen, furious, and probably embarrassed by both. “Was it the maths sheet?” I ask.
His silence tells me yes. Behind me, the classroom door opens, but I don’t turn around.
If I do, Connor will bolt or escalate. Instead, I hold his gaze and soften mine a fraction.
“You don’t have to throw furniture to let me know you’re overwhelmed,” I say.
“You can just say it; you can ask for help.”
His breathing begins to slow. Footsteps follow me, then low adult voices, and someone unfamiliar clears his throat. Connor notices, and his eyes flick past me as his shoulders stiffen again. So I stand slowly and finally turn to see who it is.
Three men stand just inside the doorway, all tall and broad, dressed in navy tracksuits with the team crest stitched over the chest. Manchester Panthers.
Of course. I’d forgotten the school fundraiser was today. The headteacher, Mrs Graves, beams beside them as if she’s personally recruited royalty. “And this,” she says brightly, “is our support unit. Kate is one of our wonderful teaching assistants.”
Wonderful. That’s me. The woman currently negotiating with airborne furniture.
The tallest of the three men steps forward a fraction. He’s all dark hair, broad shoulders, and a face that would look infuriatingly good on billboards. He takes in the tipped chair, the tense room, and finally me. His mouth twitches as if he’s trying not to smile. I do not appreciate that.
“Everything under control?” he asks. His accent is soft yet unmistakable. French Canadian, if I had to guess. There’s something warm in the way he asks; not mocking, not quite.
Connor bristles immediately. “Who are you?” he demands.
The man doesn’t hesitate as he crouches to be at eye level with a fourteen-year-old mid-meltdown. “I’m Lukas,” he says simply. “I play ice hockey for the Panthers.” He gestures vaguely to the rest of the team with a wave of his arm.
Connor snorts. “So?”
The other two players shift awkwardly behind him, nodding their greetings in unison. I recognise one of them from posters around town, Callum Fraser, I think his name is. The third is trying very hard not to look as if he’s witnessing a disaster.
Lukas doesn’t move or flinch. “Math giving you a hard time?” he asks Connor as he reaches for the maths sheet on the table.
Connor crosses his arms. “It’s stupid.”
“Yeah,” Lukas nods solemnly. “I failed algebra twice.” That wasn’t the direction I expected him to take this.
Connor hesitates. “You’re lying.”
“I wish,” Lukas replies. “My old coach still brings it up.”
There’s the faintest ripple of laughter from the corridor. Mrs Graves looks as if she’s aged five years in the last thirty seconds. Connor’s breathing evens, and the tension bleeds from his shoulders. I step in gently. “Connor, why don’t you take five minutes in the quiet room? I’ll come find you.”
He eyes Lukas once more, suspicious but no longer volcanic, then shuffles past us and out the door.
The classroom exhales, and I right the chair, placing it back by the table.
When I look back, Lukas is watching me. Not in a gross way, not even overtly flirty.
More like studying. “You’re good at that,” he says.
“At algebra?”
“At not panicking.”
I shrug. “It’s part of the job.”
It’s then that Mrs Graves corrals them from my classroom before any of them is caught in the crossfire of more flying furniture.
By lunch, I’m tired in the way only constant emotional regulation brings. Not drained, but more used up or wrung out. I feel like I’ve been holding several invisible threads all morning and can finally set them down for twenty minutes.
I’m sitting in the staffroom with a cup of tea that’s already going cold when Mrs Donnelly, the Pastoral Care leader, leans in. “You’re very good with them, you know.”
I smile. “They’re very good with me.” It’s true. They’re honest and don’t perform or pretend to be anything they’re not. There’s a lot of comfort in that.
By the time the final bell rings, the corridors explode again. I stand by the gates for handover duty, my coat pulled tight around me to ward off the icy wind, automatically scanning each child and their designated adult.
My son attends the same school where I work.
It’s handy if nothing else, but I’m fairly certain he’d much prefer that I worked elsewhere.
Hudson’s year group finishes five minutes earlier than mine, and I always check for him walking past the gates, even though I know he’ll already be halfway home.
He doesn’t need collecting anymore. That shift happened quietly around twelve.
One day, instead of waiting in the car park for me, he just said, “I’ll walk home,” as though it had always been the plan.
He’s fourteen now. Taller than me by at least an inch, and his shoulders are broadening every damn day.
His voice often catching between boy and man. And, my God, he’s protective.
After making sure Hudson has eaten and is well on his way with his homework, I meet Emma at The Fox and Hound pub just after six.
She’s already got a glass of wine in front of her and waves dramatically when she spots me.
“You look like you’ve wrestled wolves,” she says as I slide into the seat opposite.
“Year Eights,” I reply. “Close enough.” She laughs, pushing the waiting glass towards me.
Emma and I have been friends since Hudson was in nursery. We bonded over sleep deprivation and judgemental mums at toddler group. She’s one of the few people who remember me from before I became just Hudson’s mum.
“How is he?” she asks, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Growing,” I say dryly. “Constantly. I swear I buy new trainers every three months.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I sigh softly and wrap both hands around the stem of my glass. “He’s good. Quiet. Busy. He goes to football twice a week and revises even when I don’t tell him to.”
Emma raises an eyebrow. “Revision without prompting? Are you sure he’s yours?”
“Cheeky.” But I smile.
“He’s just…” I search for the word. “Aware.”
“Of?”
“Everything.”
I tell her about last week, when a man from the gas company came to check the meter, and Hudson hovered in the hallway the whole time. “He stood there like a security guard,” I say, shaking my head. “Didn’t say a word. Just watched. I’m sure the poor man thought he was about to lynch him.”
Emma’s mouth softens. “He’s looking after you.”
“I don’t need looking after.”
“I know that. You know that. Huds doesn’t.” That lands.
Hudson was four when his dad left. Four. One minute, there was noise and family life, laughter and fun. Then there was quiet. And questions I couldn’t answer properly, such as, “Is he coming back?”
“No, love.” I’d had to say through held-back tears.
“Why?” Because sometimes adults are cowards, that’s why.