A month later, at a bus stop near the high street, Mark and the woman he now knew was named Stevie saw each other again.  It was June, and the country was in the middle of a heatwave.  The sun made it hard to look up without squinting, but it brought out the colour in the trees and the buildings.  Even the pavement, with the black blobs from discarded chewing gum all over it, was a pleasant crimson colour in the sunlight.  The people in and around the shops were tanned and cheerful-looking, although both Stevie and Mark knew that at least a few of them must have been uncomfortable in the heat.  They were.

It was too hot for full-length trousers today, but Mark was wearing his usual pair of tracksuit bottoms anyway.   Out of all the people waiting for the bus, he was the only one whose ankles weren’t on display, and the only one under thirty whose knees weren’t.  He felt like the odd one out, but he couldn’t help it if they were the only trousers that were clean, could he?  Besides, what was the point in dressing up nice if no-one was going to pay any attention?

Anyway, all that went out of his head when he caught sight of Stevie.  He wandered over, trying not to look too desperate for company.  “Alright?”

Stevie nodded, trying not to look at his face.  Mark bit down a sudden jolt of anger.  OK, Stevie was pissed off at him, but Mark had seen too many girls look away from his face in the last few months, and it always hurt.  He’d never get a girl again.  He’d never kick a ball around with his mates again.  He’d never have any mates again.  And he could forget about ever becoming a footballer or a TV presenter.  Oh, sure, people said stupid shit like “Believe in yourself, and you can achieve anything,” but Mark knew that in the real world, you didn’t get anywhere if you looked like bloody Frankenstein.  He might as well be dead.

“How’s Emily?” he asked.

“She’s a lot better now she doesn’t have to see you,” said Stevie.

Mark took a few seconds to decide what his reaction was going to be.  Eventually he nodded.  “OK.  I know I kind of deserved that.  I’m sorry I called you a dyke last time we met.”

Stevie looked at him.  “You know what, Mark?  I actually wasn’t that offended by being called a dyke.  I was a little offended that you called me a stupid dyke, but…  I’d probably have been more offended if I actually was a lesbian.  You know, because you were using it as an insult as if there was something wrong with it.  There’s nothing wrong with being gay, you know.”

Mark frowned.  This Stevie bird had a funny way of talking.  “So…  You’re saying you’re not gay?”

“Right.”  She sat down on the bench, and put her elbows on her lap.  “Who told you I was?”

Mark thought back to Danny pointing her out last year, back when Danny and the others still spoke to him.  My brother said he used to want to rub her face in the dirt to see if that would rub the ugly away.  He said he could tell back then she was a dyke.  But then, Danny’s brother wasn’t exactly Einstein.  So was she telling the truth?  Was she really a lesbian, or did she just not take care of herself?  That was kind of sad, if it was true.  “I kind of thought that you and Emily…  You know…”

“Me and Emily?”  Stevie grimaced.  “You can’t be serious!  Mark, she’s the same age as my baby sister!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, OK?”  Mark put up his hands in surrender.  “I just heard some things, OK?  I can’t help what I heard.”

“OK.”  Stevie leaned back, a little less agitated.  “But the real reason I was angry with you was the way you’ve treated Emily.  Especially the way you acted when you found out she was pregnant.  I’m not going to give you a hard time about that, because Emily said all the things I’d have wanted to when you came to our flat, but you’ve spent the last year acting like a real jackass.”

Well, how would you act if your face had been smashed? Mark wanted to ask her, but didn’t.  It occurred to him that most of the jackass behaviour she was referring to had happened before the accident.  “I know,” he said, “And I’m really sorry.  Emily…  She’s an OK girl.  I shouldn’t have been so mean to her.”  He sighed.  “But I’m paying now, aren’t I?  I don’t have any friends anymore, no girl’s going to want me, my parents hate me, and now I want to help out with the baby, but Emily won’t let me.  She’s probably right.  Who’d want me as a father?  Nobody wants me as anything else.”  He should have known better in the first place, but all he’d been able to think about was the baby smiling up at him.  Maybe everyone hated him at school, but to that baby, it would be like he could do no wrong, because he’d always be its dad.

Stupid.  He didn’t know what he’d been thinking.

He’d known that life would be different when he got back to school in January, but he hadn’t expected everyone to turn against him.  Nobody wanted to sit next to him anymore.  Nobody would talk to him, either, and every time he did anything he heard people whispering about him.  He knew what kind of lies people were spreading about him.  Saying it was his fault Rob had died.  Blaming it on him being drunk.  He hadn’t been drunk.  He could still walk straight and he could talk without slurring, and from where he was standing, that wasn’t drunk.  But Gary and Danny had swallowed the lies.  “You knew you were drunk, you bullied Rob into coming along to meet Frankie and Jo,” they’d said.  Funny, it never occurred to them to blame Frankie and Jo for causing the accident.  It was as much their fault as his.

Stevie twisted round.  “Actually, Mark, believe it or not, I’ve been trying to convince Emily to let you help her with the baby.”

“Really?”  Was she just messing with his head?  He wouldn’t put it past her.  “You mean that?”

“Uh-huh.  I told her that whatever you did before, you’re trying to do the right thing now, and she should let you.”  She scratched her arm.  “Although I still think it was a dumb idea to ask her to move in with you.”

“Well, I didn’t know she’d react like that.  Talking about my mum and dad like that.”  He knew better than anyone else that they weren’t the easiest people to live with, but he’d still wanted to give her a slap.

“She was upset.  You can’t blame her.”

Mark nodded.  “Still, it was out of order, her saying that.  I’d like to hear what she’d say if I said things about her mum and dad.”

“She’d probably agree,” Stevie told him, “I know I would; I’ve met her parents.”

Mark laughed.  “Me too.”  He took a good look at her.  She was wearing the heavy eye make-up again.  Now that Mark saw her face close up, it looked as if her eyelids were red underneath.  Like she’d been trying to cover up the fact that she’d been crying.  It couldn’t be easy, being her.  “So you’re trying to talk Emily round?”

“Yeah, but it’s not easy.  She’s very stubborn.”

Mark didn’t say anything, but he thought, She never was before.

An image flashed through Mark’s head of Emily in the park, wearing that cute little skirt and hanging on his every word.  It had been perfect.  Just a few months ago, everything in his life had been exactly right.  Even the most beautiful girls had looked like nothing compared to Emily.  Even girls in magazines and that.  And she was with him.  He’d taken all that for granted, and now it was gone.

“So,” asked Stevie after a few seconds’ silence, “Have a lot of people you know been saying things about me?”

“Well, not about you and Emily.  But maybe people think the wrong thing about you, because…”  Oh, come on.  She couldn’t be completely blind to how she looked.  “Because of the way you dress.  Maybe.  Your dress sense is kind of… not like how girls usually dress.”

She looked annoyed.  “It’s supposed to be an androgynous rock & roll look.  Like Patti Smith or Annie Lennox, y’know?”

“Yeah, I get it.”  Mark didn’t know who either of those people were, but he got the idea.  And he thought he saw Stevie’s problem.  “Trouble is, men round here might not get that you’re trying to do a rock & roll look,” he said, trying to sound sympathetic, “You’ve got to be kind of ladylike.  You know, clothes a bit flirty, a bit revealing…”

“Hey, I’m not worried about whether or not lots of men find me attractive.  I’ll take quality over quantity any day.  I’m just worried that people think I date sixteen-year-olds.  I do not want people thinking that.  Just for the record, both the men I’ve slept with were over twenty at the time.”

Mark nodded.  Both, she’d said.  Not all.  It was a little surprising that she’d ever had one man, let alone two, but now that he thought about it, it made sense.  Stevie had probably been to university, and at the parties there guys got so drunk they didn’t care what they were shagging.  Still, two was pathetic.  She must be, what, twenty-one?  He’d managed more than that before the accident, and he was only seventeen.

What a sad life she must have.  Mark used to wonder what it was like, going through life knowing that you were a total reject, but now he knew.  He didn’t have to wonder what it was like being so ugly that nobody would ever want you, or such a loser that people avoided you.  Him and Stevie had both been spat on by wankers who thought they were better.  They were like two peas in a pod.

“Stevie?”

“Uh-huh?”

“I been thinking.  You and me…  Well, we have a lot in common.”  He looked her in the eye.  “And I think we should take care of each other.  ‘Cause nobody else is going to.”  He sat down beside her.  “I want to see you again.”

Stevie moved away from him.  “Mark, are you saying to want us to…?”

“Go out,” said Mark.  He thought for a moment, then smirked and raised his eyebrow.  “Or stay in, if you like.”

Stevie seemed to think for a moment.  You could almost see the cogs whirring round in her head and she tried to decide whether or not to take Mark up on his offer.  Then she turned back to him, a sad kind of smile on her face.  “Mark,” she said, “I will never, ever be that desperate.  And I dont think you should be, either.”

After that, they sat in awkward silence until the bus came.