Harry chuckled as Ruby told him how the evening had played out. He had to bite the pillow to keep from laughing too loud when she acted out her dad’s reaction, scared of alerting people to his presence.

Tonight, she was only wearing one of his T-shirts to bed over her underwear – making him turn around and close his eyes before getting changed. It looked good on her. Big and baggy and oversized, and completely sexy. Even with striped bed socks. And with that new nose piercing, she looked fierce. Ruby was definitely the most amazing person he had ever met.

They cuddled up to watch a documentary on YouTube about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two lads who had won infamy during the Columbine school shooting. Harry didn’t hear a word of it, too busy thinking about how close he was to Ruby. After a couple of minutes, she wrinkled her nose and turned it off.

‘They sound kind of crazy,’ she admitted. ‘It doesn’t even sound like revenge for being bullied, more like they just wanted to hurt people anyway. Besides, I can’t be bothered to watch that while you’re here.’

Her face looked even paler than normal, like she’d had a shock. As she turned the light off, Harry thought he saw her eyes look a little red with tears, but when she cuddled up to him, she seemed fine. He had to shift a bit, because he didn’t want her to feel what was happening to him. Talk about embarrassing, man. But they kept on kissing, and his hand moved up her thigh.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, pulling back. She scooted away but not before he rubbed his hand over her leg again, feeling the raised bump of a scab, all in a long neat line. It stood proud and rough against her petal soft skin. ‘Has someone hurt you? Was it your dad?’

‘No. It’s fine, I’m fine,’ she whispered back. They had the light off, he couldn’t see her expression. He felt blindly for his phone and switched it on. In the illumination it threw, he could see her eyebrows were drawn together, worried.

Anger pulsed. He was on his feet before he realised it, flicked the big light on. Threw the duvet back. His girlfriend scuttled to the far corner of the bed, pulling her legs up as if to protect herself from his righteous indignation. What she didn’t realise was that it gave him a view of how the cut snaked around her inner thigh so far that it could be seen from the back, too.

Her beautiful skin was puckered with the scab, the skin reddened on its edges as though angry. It broke his heart.

‘No, man, no, that’s a proper deep cut, Rubes. Who did it? Tell me right now, or I’m marching straight into your parents’ bedroom and kicking the crap out of your dad.’

He was still whispering, even in his fury, but it was loud enough. Ruby flapped her hands.

‘Look. It’s not Dad. Okay, just calm down, sit next to me and bloody listen.’

He hesitated.

‘Please, Harry. You’re the only one who ever listens to me, and I need you to do that now, okay?’

He nodded. Flicked the light out and clambered into bed beside her. ‘Figured it might be easier for you to ’fess up in the dark,’ he said, gently.

‘See? That’s why you’re brilliant – because you understand stuff like that. Thank you.’ The mattress shifted as she moved towards him. Soft lips found his. ‘Right, I know this is going to sound mental but… I did that cut myself.’

‘What? You fell or something?’ Harry scrunched his face up in the dark. She wasn’t saying it like it was an accident, she was saying it like there was something way bigger going on.

‘No, I did it, well, because sometimes the pain inside me gets so bad that the only way I can cope is if I make it physical. So, I cut myself. With scissors. And when the blood flows it’s like the pain is flowing out with it. I don’t do it often. I’ve only done it a few times since meeting you, which is amazing because things have been pretty intense lately with those messages and stuff. But you help me cope. You, and the cutting.’

She fell silent. Harry didn’t fill it. He was trying to get his head around what she was saying. In a weird way, it made sense.

‘You’re hurting yourself to stop the hurt. But like, you’re in control of this pain, and it’s the being in control that helps… is that right?’

‘Kind of. I suppose. I’ve never thought about the being in control bit, but it does sound right now you’ve said it. It just gets the pain out of me. I – I like it.’

She took his hand, guiding it in the dark. ‘Here, can you feel that?’

He nodded. Realised she couldn’t see, so said he could. A little bump of scar tissue under his fingertips. Then another and another. They criss-crossed her belly.

So many emotions choked him up. He cleared his throat, trying to unblock the feelings so he could speak.

‘Rubes? I know it helps, but I don’t think you should do it no more. I think next time you want to do it, you should call me and I’ll be here, right away.’

And if anyone ever made her feel like crap about herself again, if anyone made her so desperately full of pain that she was overflowing with it, he was going to find them and hurt them. He was a Woolwich boy. Woolwich boys meant business.

‘You know that saying about being a big fish in a little pond?’ Ruby said suddenly.

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, I don’t even feel like a little fish. I’m what the fish feed on. But maybe I need to do something about it to convince everyone I’m a shark. Like those lads Klebold and Harris. Maybe they had the right idea after all.’

‘That way everyone leaves you alone once and for all.’ He gave a slow nod.

Ruby lifted up his arm and stole beneath it. Wriggled against him until she found the perfect place to rest her head.

‘I don’t want to watch anything, but tell me more about Columbine,’ she begged quietly.

In the soft, sing-song voice his mum had used back in the day when she was reading bedtime stories, before things had got so bad, he whispered tales of hatred, revenge, mass shootings, and bombs that hadn’t gone off as planned.

His girlfriend’s head grew heavier and heavier, but he only stopped talking once she was fast asleep. He listened to her breathing, and his own breaths grew slower, his lids heavier…