Holly Newman stood at the window of Mrs Barrett’s kitchen and filled the kettle for the umpteenth time since she’d arrived.

It felt so strange, being in the area again. Especially since nothing seemed to have changed around here at all in over ten years.

Take this very crescent, for instance. The mostly detached houses, built in the sixties, stood proudly on their modest plots. Small front gardens led to longer, narrow yards at the back.

Aside from the odd neat porch, and the ostentatious white Grecian pillars that the people at the end had added, the facades were unchanged.

Holly used to pass by here on her way home from school when she travelled to college each day. The third house in still had a front garden full of gaudy and, Holly had always thought, rather sinister-looking gnomes.

National newspaper headlines constantly screamed of local corner shops shutting down in favour of the sprawling superstores that seemed to be springing up everywhere, but here, at the top of Baker Crescent, it was a different story.

Fred Crawley the butcher, Mr Timpson the greengrocer, and Mr and Mrs Khan’s general store, complete with its small integral post office, all stood in a line. Immovable as ever.

Holly had been just eighteen years old when she’d left the area for the bright lights of Manchester and the ‘amazing opportunity’ she’d been persuaded to chase. What she’d give now to rewind that decision.

She sighed and flicked the switch on the kettle, listening to the faint hiss of the element.

In effect, she was right back where she’d started. But she refused to think of it like that. Being back here now signified something else: that she’d drawn a line under everything that had gone before. Everything she had endured.

Holly had left behind the people she prayed she’d never have to see face to face again… all but one, anyway. She yearned to see him, the love of her life, more than anyone, but she had no choice but to bide her time.

She had emerged from hell itself and was ready to start again. And this time, she would make it work.

There was no definite plan as yet, but she could feel the determination drumming at her very core.

She cast her mind back to twelve years earlier, when she’d left school. Wollaton Secondary Modern – they’d changed the name now – was only about half a mile away from here. She had achieved moderate grades, which was a wonder, considering.

The thing that loomed largest in her memory was the enormous relief she’d felt as she’d walked out of those crummy peeling iron gates for the last time. It had been a welcome change from the crushing sense of dread she’d suffered every single morning of her schooldays. The prospect of the long, miserable day that stretched ahead of her.

On her last day, she’d watched with amusement as the squealing knots of girls in her year cried, hugging each other, lamenting the end of their time together.

Strains of their shallow promises had reached her ears as she drew closer. How they were all going to stay in touch, how they would always be friends no matter where in the world they ended up. And of course, they’d already planned to meet soon to catch up.

Life wasn’t like that. Holly knew.

People soon forgot you. They often said good things would happen that never did.

There existed a parallel universe to the soaps and feel-good programmes on television. An everyday reality where bills didn’t get paid, electricity was cut off and kids went to bed hungry most nights, hoping against hope that nobody would come into their bedroom to hurt them.

Lots of the girls who had been breaking their hearts out in the school yard had come from indulgent homes. They had enjoyed being the apple of the eye of parents who were still married.

It had been a state school, so not many of them knew real wealth. But Holly recognised that those girls had been rich in other things. The belief of parents and teachers that they could and would do well in life. Food in the cupboards at home. A clean, fashionable uniform that wasn’t third-hand or frayed at the hem.

Those girls had been able to believe their own hype so completely because they’d been shielded from reality. They hadn’t known yet just how shitty life could be.

Holly had never seen any of them hanging around the small park across from the school. This was the place where she’d usually sit at the end of each day, after the library closed. Sometimes she’d stay there for hours, until it was impossible to delay going home.

But on that last day, the library had been closing early to mark the end of the summer term, and the park was flooded with rampaging, drunken students trying to prolong their student days.

She decided she’d just have to keep out of Uncle Keith’s way until her aunt got back from her cleaning job.

Nobody had asked Holly to sign their shirt or blouse as she shuffled slowly towards the exit, making her way alone through the excited throng of people. If they’d asked, she’d have refused anyway. It was all so two-faced. Half of the hugging girls she’d walked past had done nothing but bicker behind each other’s backs over the past year.

They thought they were sad to be leaving their friends and teachers, but Holly had known that really they were grieving the end of their little empires. They had been secretly gutted that they’d no longer be in a place where they were empowered to bully those they perceived to be different to them. Where they’d been able to make people’s lives – people like Holly – an utter misery.

She’d smiled to herself as she reached the gates and allowed herself a moment or two to look back at the building and the other leavers.

Good luck to them in their mind-numbing jobs, which were the only option they’d be able to secure without any qualifications. Hopefully they would find themselves at the other end of the scale. They’d be the ones who didn’t fit in and were at the mercy of the people in control.

Karma was a marvellous thing, Holly had thought.

‘Hey! Wait up.’

She’d turned at the sound of a voice calling behind her.

It had been Markus, of course. There was no one else.

‘You don’t want to wait for me? That is OK,’ he grinned as he pushed through the crowd towards her. ‘I will catch up with you anyway.’

Markus spoke excellent English but had still retained a discernible trace of his native German accent. He knew what it meant to be an outsider here too.

They had been in the same maths and history groups during the last two years of school and had gravitated to sitting together against the never-ending spit balls thrown from the back of the classroom.

Holly had suffered because she wasn’t with the in-crowd and Markus because he was German, gay and fostered. ‘I am what is commonly known as a triple threat,’ he’d joke.

Now he looked around the school yard.

‘You and I, we are the only ones alone here, it seems.’ He indicated the thick rope of celebrating students that snaked around the quadrangle without ever seeming to near the exit gates.

‘Oh, I’m used to it now.’ Holly shrugged.

‘Ah, but you see, now we are not so alone. We are together. Which is better, yes?’

She nodded and smiled at him. ‘Suppose so, yeah.’

‘What exciting life awaits you, Holly, when you walk through these iron gates of hell one last time?’

‘Oh, you know,’ she said airily. ‘Film star, supermodel, brain surgeon… haven’t really decided yet.’

He nudged her. ‘Come on!’

‘I’ve honestly got no idea.’ She grinned. ‘I just want to get as far away from this place as I possibly can, and soon. But I have to find somewhere to go first. A new home, new start. Easier said than done, isn’t it? In the meantime, I’m going to college to get some secretarial skills under my belt.’

‘Well, I am going to make some money,’ he said, all at once serious. ‘Lots of money.’

‘Oh yeah, doing what?’

‘Hmm, this is just one small detail I’ve yet to decide.’ He shrugged. ‘See you around then, I guess?’

She’d left his question unanswered as together they walked out of the gates, finally leaving behind the all-consuming misery that had been secondary school.

Although Holly hadn’t known it then, far from escaping the torture of the classroom, she had just taken her first step on a journey that would lead her to a far worse fate.