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It is almost a relief when school starts up again. Lochan and I both have mocks, and keeping Tiffin and Wila amused every day for two weeks has taken its tol. We return to school, exhausted, and admire the new iPods, mobiles, designer clothes and laptops that surround us. At lunch, Lochan walks past my table. ‘Meet me on the stairs,’ he whispers. Francie lets out a loud wolf-whistle as he moves away and I swing round in time to see his face turn crimson.

Up here the wind is almost a gale, cutting right through you like slivers of ice. I have no idea how Lochan can bear it, day after day. He is hugging himself against the cold, his teeth chattering, his lips tinged with blue.

‘Where’s your coat?’ I reproach him.

‘I forgot it in the usual morning rush.’

‘Lochan, you’re going to catch pneumonia and die! Would you at least go read in the library, for God’s sake?’

‘I’m OK.’ He is so cold, he can barely talk. But on a day like this, half the school is crammed into the library.

‘What’s up? I thought you didn’t like me coming up here. Has something happened?’

‘No, no.’ He bites his lip in an attempt to hold back a smile. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

I frown, confused. ‘What?’

He reaches into his blazer pocket and brings out a smal silver box. ‘It’s a late Christmas present. I wasn’t able to get it til now. And I didn’t want to give it to you at home because, you know . . .’ His voice tails off awkwardly.

I take it from him slowly. ‘But we made a pact ages ago,’ I protest. ‘Christmas was for the kids. We weren’t going to waste any more money than we had to, remember?’

‘I wanted to break the pact this year.’ He looks excited, his eyes on the box, wiling me to open it.

‘But then you should have told me. I didn’t get you anything!’

‘I didn’t want you to get me anything. I didn’t tel you because I wanted it to be a surprise.’

‘But—’

He takes me by the shoulders and gives me a gentle shake, laughing. ‘Aargh! Would you just open it?’

I grin. ‘OK, OK! But I stil object to this pact-breaking without my consent . . .’ I lift the lid. ‘Oh .

. . God . . . Lochie . . .’

‘Do you like it?’ He is practicaly bouncing on his toes, grinning in delight, a glow of triumph shining from his eyes. ‘It’s solid silver,’ he informs me proudly. ‘It should fit you perfectly. I took the measurement from the mark on your watch strap.’

I continue to stare into the box, aware I haven’t moved or spoken for several moments. The silver bracelet lying there against the black velvet is the most exquisite thing I have ever seen. Made up of intricate loops and swirls, it sparkles as it catches the white light of the winter sun.

‘How did you pay for this?’ My voice is a shocked whisper.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes!’

He hesitates for a moment, the glow fades and he lowers his eyes. ‘I’ve – I’ve been saving. I had a kind of job—’

I look up from the beautiful bracelet, incredulous. ‘A job? What? When?’

‘Wel, it wasn’t a real job.’ The light has gone from his eyes and he sounds embarrassed now. ‘I offered to write some essays for a few people and it kind of caught on.’

‘You did people’s homework for money?’

‘Yeah. Wel, coursework mostly.’ He looks down sheepishly.

‘Since when?’

‘Beginning of last term.’

‘You’ve been saving for this for four months?’

His shoes scuff at the ground and his eyes refuse to meet mine. ‘At first it was just extra money for – you know – household stuff. But then I thought about Christmas and how you hadn’t had a present for – for ever . . .’

I’m finding it hard to catch my breath. It’s a struggle to take al this in. ‘Lochan, we have to return this immediately and get your money back.’

‘We can’t.’ His voice wavers.

‘What d’you mean?’

He turns the bracelet over. On the inside are the words: Maya, love you for ever. Lochan x I stare at the engraving, numb with shock, the silence between us punctuated only by distant shouts from the playground.

Lochan says quietly, ‘I thought – it shouldn’t be too loose, so no one wil be able to see the engraving. And if you’re worried, you could always just keep it hidden at home. L-like a lucky charm or something – I mean, only – only if you like it of course . . .’ His voice trails off into silence again. I cannot move.

‘It was probably a sily idea.’ He’s talking very fast now, tripping over his words. ‘It’s – it’s probably not what you’d have picked out for yourself – guys have the worst taste in this kind of thing. I should have waited and asked you. I should have let you choose, or got something more useful like, um, like – like . . .’

I drag my eyes away from the bracelet again. Despite the cold, Lochan’s cheeks look hot with embarrassment, his eyes radiating disappointment. ‘Maya, look, it realy doesn’t matter. You don’t need to wear it or anything. You – you could just keep it hidden at home – for the engraving.’ He gives me an unsteady smile, desperate to shrug the whole thing off.

I shake my head slowly, swalow hard and force myself to speak. ‘No, Lochie, no. It’s – it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned. It’s the most incredible present I’ve ever been given. And the engraving . . . I’m going to wear it al my life. I just can’t believe you did this. Just for me. Al that work, night after night. I thought you were going crazy about exams or something. But it was al just to

– just to give me—’ I can’t finish the sentence and, holding tightly onto the box, lean towards him, my face pressed against his chest.

I hear him exhale in relief. ‘Hey, you know, the polite thing to do is smile and say thank you!’

‘Thank you,’ I whisper against him, but the words mean nothing compared to what I feel. He takes the box and lifts my arm from my side. I feel him reach round me and push up the sleeve of my coat. After a few moments of fumbling, I feel the cool silver against my skin.

‘Hey, how’s that? Take a look at it,’ he says proudly.

I take a deep breath, blinking back tears. The intricate silver round my wrist gleams. Against my pulse point rest the words Love you for ever. Yet I already know that he wil. I wear the bracelet al the time. I only ever take it off in the safety of my own room, resting it in the palm of my hand and gazing, enraptured, at the engraving. At night I sleep with the curtains partialy opened so the moonlight catches against the metal, making it sparkle. In the dark I feel its indentations with my lips, as if kissing it brings me closer to Lochan.

On Saturday evening Mum surprises us by slamming into the house, her make-up running, hair wet with rain. ‘Oh, you’re al here,’ she sighs, making no attempt to hide her disappointment, standing in the doorway of the front room in an oversized man’s anorak, fishnet stockings and tottery heels. Tiffin is practising head-stands on the couch, Wila is sprawled out on the carpet gazing duly at the TV and I’m attempting to finish my history homework on the coffee table. Kit is already out with his mates and Lochan is upstairs, revising.

‘Mummy!’ Wila leaps up and runs over, holding up her arms for a hug. Mum pats her on the head without looking down, and Wila settles for hugging her legs instead.

‘Mum, Mum, look what I can do!’ Tiffin shouts triumphantly, launching himself into an aerial somersault and knocking my pile of books to the floor.

‘How come you’re not at Dave’s?’ I ask her acerbicaly.

‘He had to go and rescue his ex-wife,’ she replies, her lip curling in disgust. ‘Apparently she’s now an agoraphobic or something. More like a chronic attention-seeker, if you ask me.’

‘Mummy, let’s go out somewhere. Please!’ Wila begs, hanging onto her leg.

‘Not now, sweetie pie. It’s raining and Mummy’s very tired.’

‘You could take them to the cinema,’ I suggest quickly. ‘Superheroes starts in fifteen minutes. I was going to take them, but since they haven’t seen you in over two weeks . . .’

‘Yeah, Mum! Superheroes sounds wel cool – you’l love it! Everyone in my class has seen it.’

Tiffin’s face lights up.

‘And popcorn!’ Wila begs, jumping up and down. ‘I love popcorn! And Coke!’

Mum manages a tight smile. ‘Kids, I’ve got a splitting headache and I’ve only just got in.’

‘But you’ve been at Dave’s for two whole weeks!’ Tiffin suddenly shouts, his face puce. She flinches slightly. ‘OK, OK. Fine.’ She shoots me an angry look. ‘You do realize I’ve been working for the past two weeks, right?’

I stare back at her coldly. ‘So have we.’

She turns on her heel, and after an argument over an umbrela, furious yels about a missing coat and anguished wails about someone’s foot being stepped on, the front door bangs shut. I drop my head back against the edge of the couch and close my eyes. After a moment I open them again and smile. They’ve gone. They’ve al gone. This is too good to be true. We finaly have the house to ourselves.

I tiptoe upstairs, my heart-rate picking up. I’m going to surprise him. Creep up behind him, slide onto his lap and announce our unexpected window of freedom with a long, deep kiss. Poised outside his bedroom door, I hold my breath and gently turn the handle.

Slowly I push the door ajar. Then I stop. He is not at his desk, head bent over his book as I expected. Instead he’s by the window: one hand fiddling intently with the broken mobile he stil thinks he can salvage, the other trying to pul off a sock as he wobbles precariously on one leg. He is half turned away from me so he hasn’t noticed me behind the door and I watch him in amusement as he struggles to remove his other sock, eyes stil fixed on the phone’s cracked screen. Then, with a sigh of annoyance, he chucks it onto his bed and, grabbing his T-shirt, puls it swiftly over his head, his hair emerging comicaly tousled. Spotting the towel slung over the back of his chair, I realize he is about to take a shower and start to draw back, when something stops me. I’m suddenly struck by how much his body has changed. Always on the skinny side, he has now become more muscular. A slight curve of the biceps, his chest smooth and hairless, not exactly a six-pack but the hint of definition in his stomach . . .

Sneaking up behind him, I slide my arms around his waist and feel him tense.

‘She’s taken them out,’ I whisper in his ear.

He turns in my arms and suddenly we are kissing hard, franticaly – no one to stop us, no limit on our time. But instead of making us languorous, it adds a new element of excitement and urgency to the situation. Lochan’s hands shake as he cups my face in them. Between kisses, he pants gently against my cheek and the pain of longing pulses through my whole body. He kisses every part of my face, my ears, my neck. I run my hands up and down the warmth of his bare chest, his arms, his shoulders. I want to feel every part of his body. I want to inhale him. I want him so much, it hurts. He is kissing me so fiercely now he hardly gives me time to draw breath. His hands are in my hair, against my neck, beneath my colar. His bare skin tingles beneath my touch. But there are stil too many clothes, too many obstacles between our two bodies. I slip my hand under the top of his jeans. ‘Wait .

. .’ I whisper.

His breath shudders against my ear and he tries to kiss my neck but I push him gently away.

‘Wait,’ I tel him. ‘Stop for a second. I have to concentrate.’

As I lower my head, I feel his body tauten in frustration and surprise. I force myself to focus on what I’m doing, careful not to rush. I don’t want to get this wrong, make a mistake, make a fool of myself, hurt him . . .

Undoing the button is easy. Sliding down the zip is less so – on the first try it sticks and I have to draw it back up before sliding it down al the way. But suddenly Lochan is grabbing me by the wrists, wrenching back my hands.

‘What are you doing?’ He sounds incredulous, almost angry.

‘Shh . . .’ I return to his open trousers.

‘Maya, no!’ He is panting hard, a frantic edge to his voice. His hands are between mine now, trying to zip himself up again, but his fingers are fumbling, shaking in shock. Puling back the waistband of his boxers, I slide my fingers inside, and feel a rush of elation as I make contact. It feels surprisingly warm and hard. With a smal gasp, Lochan buckles forward, sucking in his breath, tensing and staring at me with a look of complete astonishment, as if he has forgotten who I am, the colour flooding his cheeks, his breathing fast and shalow. Then, with a smal cry, he grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me backwards.

‘What the hel are you doing?’

I recoil, speechless, as he grapples with his flies. He is yeling at the top of his voice, literaly shaking with rage. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you? What the hel were you trying to do? You know we can never ever—’

‘I’m sorry,’ I gasp. ‘I – I only – I only wanted to touch—’

‘This whole thing’s completely out of hand!’ he screams at me, the cords standing out in his neck.

‘You’re just sick, you know that? This whole thing’s just sick!’ He pushes past me, his face puce, and slams into the bathroom. Moments later I hear the shower running.

Downstairs in the front room, I pace the floor, breathing hard, anger and guilt coursing through me in equal measures. Anger at the way he just screamed at me. Guilt at not having stopped when he first told me to. Stil, I don’t understand, I just don’t understand. I thought we’d decided not to bother with what other people thought. I thought we’d decided we would be together no matter what. I hadn’t been trying to trick him into anything. I’d just suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to touch him everywhere, even there – especialy there. But fear now tugs at my throat, my shoulders, my chest. Fear that I’ve ruined what I thought we had.

The sound of his feet pounding on the stairs makes me back into the furthest corner of the room. But from the hal I hear only the jangle of keys, the squeak of trainers, the zip of a jacket. And then the front door bangs.

I stand there, stunned. Appaled. I was expecting a confrontation of some sort, the chance to offer an explanation at the very least. Instead he has just gone off and left me. I won’t accept this, I won’t. It’s not like I’ve done anything so terrible.

I shove my feet into my shoes and grab my school coat. Without even bothering to stop for my keys, I run out of the house. I can just make out his figure disappearing into the wet darkness at the end of our street. I break into a run.