Chapter 1
The kettle clicked off with a sharp, final sound that echoed slightly in the small kitchen of Lily’s one bedroom flat. Lily didn’t turn around straight away, she stood with her hands resting lightly on the counter, staring out of the window above the sink. The glass reflected her faintly, layered over the street outside where the early evening light had already begun to fade into that dull, washed-out grey. Her phone buzzed against the counter behind her. She thought about ignoring it for a moment, then it buzzed again. Lily exhaled slowly and reached back for it, already knowing what it would be. The screen lit up with the notification.
Facebook Reminder: St. Bartholomew’s Year 11 Reunion — Today, 7:00PM
She stared at it longer than necessary, wondering how the event had come around so quickly. It had been ten years since she’d left school. It didn’t feel like ten years, it felt like something closer and further away all at once, like a memory she could step back into if she let herself. Ten years also meant life had slipped past her far quicker than she’d ever imagined.
She locked the phone and set it face down on the counter. Behind her, the kettle gave a soft ticking sound as it cooled, another reminder of something she should be doing. However, her mind cast back. She could picture the last day of school so clearly. She remembered the chaos of that final afternoon. Shirts had been passed around with sharpie pens, where messages layered over each other with words of promises; ’stay in touch’, ’don’t forget me’. All of them were promises that none of them really believed but something they felt that they should write regardless. Lily knew that if she pulled out her shirt now, she’d find longing messages from people she’d never spoken to once since that day. Along with the odd crude drawing squashed into empty spaces.
That was the year when teenagers laughed too loudly, some of them sobbed, as the end of an era mixed with freedom and adulthood stared them straight in the face. Their bags had been weighed down with exercise books, old coursework folders, and the brand-new yearbooks the school had proudly produced for the first time. Everyone had spilled out onto the pavement together, talking about futures that felt impossibly close and impossibly far away at the same time. Some had lifetime plans of colleges, apprenticeships or travelling. Others just wanted out; to be away from education completely and went whatever way life took them.
Lily had been somewhere in the middle. Back then she had promised herself something very specific. She promised herself that she would leave the town. She would leave the people behind, and she would change the face of veterinary care. It had sounded impressive when she said it out loud and most of all it sounded exciting. She almost cringed at the thought of it. Ten years later, she was still living in the same town. Still working at the same small veterinary practice she’d joined after finishing her training. Still telling herself that staying exactly where she was, was perfectly fine.
Now there was the reunion happening in just under two hours. Lily had spent most of her twenties quietly avoiding the possibility of seeing anyone from school again. Avoiding the questions that inevitably came with reunions. What are you doing now? Where do you live? What have you achieved? It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her life. Deep down, she was proud of what she’d built. She was more embarrassed of the teenage dreams she’d told everyone and anyone back then.
Over the years she’d occasionally scrolled through old classmates’ social media profiles, curiosity getting the better of her. There were wedding photos. Holiday pictures from places she’d never been. Babies wrapped in pastel blankets. Lily had none of those things. She caught her reflection in the kitchen window. The lighting wasn’t kind. She looked older now, obviously. The kind of tired that came from long shifts and early mornings lingered around her eyes. But beneath that, she still recognised herself. Still was still the same Lily from ten years ago. Still carrying the same dreams, even if she hadn’t quite lived them yet.
“Where’s the tea??” Mia’s voice called from the living room, slicing cleanly through Lily’s spiral of thoughts.
Lily smiled despite herself and turned back to the kettle. Steam rose as she poured the water into two mugs, fogging her glasses instantly and forcing her to pause until the world came back into focus. For a moment, the intrusive thought of pouring the boiling water over herself just to avoid the reunion crossed her mind.
Carrying the mugs into the living room, Lily couldn’t help smiling. Mia had already claimed the space like it belonged to her. Her shoes were abandoned near the door. Her coat flung over the arm of the sofa. Legs tucked comfortably beneath her while she leaned back against the cushions. The music channel was on, blasting old songs they used to listen to in their teenage years.
At school, they had been inseparable. They’d carried identical lunch bags, packed with identical sandwiches. They’d shared snacks, homework, secrets and clothes. Every weekend had meant another sleepover at one of their houses, staying up far too late watching horror films and gossiping about people at school.
When they left for different colleges, they had sworn they wouldn’t drift apart. Then life happened, first came the jobs with opposite shift patterns. Then relationships that slowly filled their spare time. Before they knew it weeks had turned into months of empty promises of ’We’ll catch up soon.’ And then longer stretches where they didn’t catch up at all.
When Mia had messaged about the reunion; the same invitation Lily had quietly tried to ignore, something had sparked back into life. Before Lily really had time to process it, Mia had decided they were going together. They’d compared outfits, possible guest lists had been analysed and old gossip resurrected. Lily handed her the mug.
“No sugar. Still sweet enough, if I remember.”
Mia grinned immediately. Her dad used to say that when they were teenagers. “Perfect.”
Lily dropped onto the sofa beside her and reached for the remote, lowering the music slightly.
“So,” Mia said, blowing gently across her tea. “How are we feeling? Excited? Terrified? Having intrusive thoughts about throwing yourself under a passing bus?”
“All of the above,” Lily admitted.
Mia laughed.
Of the two of them, she had always been the confident one. The one who never seemed worried about what other people thought.
“I don’t understand people who enjoy reunions,” Lily continued. “It’s basically an organised opportunity to compare lives and publicly compete over who’s achieved the most since we left.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mia said cheerfully. “I love a bit of gossip.”
“That’s because you thrived after school.” Lily reminded her briefly of how she was exactly where she wanted to be on her lifetime plan. The same plan she’d made at the age of 14.
Mia shrugged easily. “You know I love a plan.” Then added casually, “Do you think Noah will be there?”
Lily took a sip of tea she didn’t particularly want.
“No idea.”
She hadn’t seen Noah since leaving for college.
There hadn’t been a dramatic ending of arguments or emotional goodbyes. Just a quiet understanding between two teenagers who already knew their futures were heading in different directions. They’d finished the summer together and apart from the odd message at the beginning of their new chapters, they hadn’t spoken again.
Mia watched her for a moment before letting the subject drop.
“It’ll still be nice, some people I haven’t thought about in years.” She grimaced. “Others I’ve actively tried to forget.”
Then she brightened suddenly. “Do you have any old photos? I need to emotionally prepare myself. I want proof everyone else also made terrible hair choices.”
Lily pointed toward the hallway, swallowing a gulp of her tea. “The cupboard under the stairs.”
Mia grinned and jumped up, heading for the cupboard before Lily.The cupboard was a mess; it had been this way since Lily had moved in 4 years previously. Lily winced with shame, not many people saw this unkept side of her.
“You go first,” Mia said, retreating from the doorway.
Lily crouched, rummaging through the organised chaos.She knew exactly where it was, she just needed to wade through past the old shoes, tangled wires and the random cleaning equipment she’d brought in lock down when cleaning became fashionable. She sneezed, swore when she knelt on a pin from a plug and finally dragged out a batter box with ‘SCHOOL STUFF’ scrawled across it. They carried it into the living room, placing it down before one of the sides collapsed. Tipping it open revealed a variety of forgotten memorabilia of exercises books, a stiff old tie, photos from sports days, trips, badly lit parties and little notes they used to pass to each other in class.
Mia picked up one photograph and burst out laughing. “Your fringe was seriously something else.”
“It was the style,” Lily said weakly.
“Briefly, I think.”
They laughed amongst them, falling into memories they’d both forgotten about. There were the teachers, the assemblies, lunch hall politics and rumours that fuelled school gossiping. For a moment, the reunion didn’t feel so daunting, almost like it would be fun to reminisce with other people.
The laughter stopped, as Mia grabbed the last thing left in the box and pulled it out.
“I can’t believe you kept this.” She said staring at the school Yearbook which the whole of their year group begged to happen. “I haven’t a clue where mine could be.”
“Apparently I hoard trauma,” Lily smiled, as she remembered how pleased they were to be the first-year group to ever have a Yearbook.
They opened it, the first pages giving a history of Bartholomew’s Comprehensive, then followed the pages of the subjects they’d all taken, with the teachers giving a sarcastic comment on each class they taught. Then came the photos, first the head boy and girl, with their comments of aspirations and goals, next the teachers who jokingly had their own aspirations and goals.
“Oh god,” Mia said suddenly spotting one of their teachers. “Mrs Donnelly. She doesn’t look half as terrifying in the picture.”
“We were petrified of her.” Lily laughed, “Whenever she walked down the corridor, everyone parted to let her through.”
They carried on flicking through the pages, pointing out the pupils that stirred forgotten memories, and scanning the pictures for their own mug shots. Then Mia froze and tapped and empty square. Lily leaned in to see which one she was pointing at. The square contained no photo, just a grey box which said, ‘Picture unavailable.’ Underneath it was just one name – Jamie West.
Lily leaned closer to the book, “I’d forgotten all about him. He hasn’t crossed my mind once.”
“So did I,” Mia said quietly, a strange look crossed her face.
The silence stretched, as if the fun had been sucked out of remembering and instead forced with a memory, they weren’t quite sure how to deal with. The boy who simply just disappeared. The empty space in the classroom and at lunch, that nobody quite seemed to notice. Life carried on around it and soon the empty space was filled, like it was just that easy to replace and move on.
A strange expression crossed Mia’s face; the sort people made when they were trying to recall something that felt just out of reach. The room had gone strangely quiet.
Just minutes earlier they had been laughing about terrible haircuts and embarrassing school photos. Now it felt like the air had shifted. As if they had accidentally opened a door neither of them had expected to find.
“The weird thing is,” Lily said eventually, “I can’t even picture him.”
Mia frowned slightly. “Neither can I.”
And that was what unsettled her the most.
The boy had been in their year group. In their classes. Probably sitting in the same rooms, walking the same corridors, eating lunch in the same crowded hall.
And yet when she tried to picture his face, there was nothing there. Just a blank space where a memory should have been. The boy who simply disappeared. The empty seat in class that had eventually stopped being noticed.
Life had carried on around it. Homework still needed doing. Exams still came. Teachers still filled the register every morning. Soon enough the empty space had been quietly absorbed, as if it had never really existed at all.
Lily lingered over the yearbook longer than she meant to. Her thumb rested against the edge of the page.
The photograph box sat empty, the thin printed border marking where Jamie’s face should have been. Beneath it, the caption remained.
Jamie West — Year 11
Seeing the name sitting there alone felt oddly unsettling. As if the book itself had forgotten to include the person.
Mia had already moved on to some other photos, flipping through rows of smiling faces and awkward teenage expressions, but Lily stayed where she was. Something tugged faintly at the edge of her memory. Not a clear picture. Just a feeling. Like something she had almost remembered once before. Then suddenly it surfaced.
It was English class. One of the smaller rooms near the end of the corridor; the one with the narrow windows that made the afternoon light fall across the desks in long pale strips and in the winter months, it just felt too dark.
Lily could almost hear the scrape of chairs against the floor and the soft rustle of exercise books opening. Mr Clarke stood at the front of the room, explaining something about metaphor that at least half the class wasn’t listening to. Lily had been taking notes or at least pretending to. Two desks to the right of her, near the window, Jamie sat quietly at his desk. He was slightly hunched over his notebook, his dark floppy hair falling forward as his pencil moved quickly across the page. At first Lily thought he was writing. Then she noticed the movement of his hand.
It wasn’t the steady lines of someone copying notes. It was quick, confident, and curved. Lily realised he wasn’t writing at all but drawing. The pencil moved easily, almost automatically, like he had drawn the same shapes a hundred times before. Mr Clarke turned suddenly from the whiteboard.
“Jamie.”
The pencil paused.
“Are you actually doing the work?”
A ripple of quiet laughter moved through the classroom. Jamie looked up, blinking slightly like he had been pulled back from somewhere else.
“Yes, Sir,” he said quickly.
Mr Clarke raised an eyebrow. “Then perhaps you’d like to share your notes with the rest of us.”
Jamie hesitated. Then he flipped the page of his notebook closed a little too quickly. But not before Lily caught a glimpse. A fox, drawn in fine, careful pencil strokes. The fur layered in delicate lines, the sharp tilt of its ears, the alert intelligence in its eyes. It wasn’t the sort of doodle someone scribbled absentmindedly during class. It was too detailed, too alive.
Mr Clarke sighed and turned back to the board. “Try to keep up, Jamie.”
Jamie nodded slightly. But when he reopened the notebook, Lily noticed something small. He didn’t turn to a blank page. He simply shifted the book slightly and continued drawing.
The memory faded as quickly as it had come. Lily blinked, her gaze returning to the empty space in the yearbook.
For a moment she could almost see the boy from the classroom sitting there; shoulders slightly curved, pencil moving quietly across the page. The boy who drew animals instead of notes. The boy everyone had half-noticed. And then forgotten.
Lily closed the yearbook slowly. For the first time since Jamie’s name had resurfaced, she realised something small but unsettling.
“Why did we forget about him?” she asked quietly.
Mia looked up.
“Because no one ever talked about him.”
Lily stared down at the cups of tea on the table between them. They were completely cold now. “I can’t even remember what happened to him, where did he go?”
Mia shrugged as she began gathering things back into the box. “I haven’t a clue.”
She paused for a moment, thinking.
“I do remember something though,” she added.
Lily looked up. “I remember walking past his house not long after we left school. I was with my mum. I mentioned his name and, I don’t know. It felt like I’d said something I wasn’t supposed to.”
Lily frowned. “What do you mean?”
Mia shook her head slightly. “Just that feeling when an adult changes the subject really quickly.”
Before Lily could ask anything else, Mia’s phone buzzed loudly on the coffee table. They both looked down at it.
Mia checked the screen and groaned. “We need to go.”
She stood quickly, grabbing her coat. “The taxi’s outside.”
They hurried toward the door, pulling on shoes and jackets in a rush. As Mia stepped outside, she laughed suddenly. “Imagine if he turns up tonight.”
Lily rolled her eyes slightly as she locked the flat door behind them.
Climbing into the waiting taxi, she couldn’t help thinking about something she hadn’t considered before.
Ten years ago, a group of selfish teenagers had walked out of their school gates for the final time. Without asking questions. Without looking back. Without really noticing that one of their classmates had simply disappeared. And no one seemed to care enough to ask why.
