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Over the next few weeks my mood plummeted. Mum and Dad didn’t even mention the party any more. It was like, despite what Dad said, they’d just given me a clean slate after what had happened with my calf.

Niall and Megan did their best to cheer me up, but I couldn’t shift the black cloud that had settled right over my head.

Even Zoe came to visit one afternoon after school, but nothing helped.

All I could think about was the fact that everything had blown up in my face.

I wasn’t even studying, despite the fact my exams started soon. So I’d probably fail those too.

At night I’d scroll through Shane’s Instagram to see if he’d posted anything else, so I could get a tiny glimpse into his life.

I’d been doing it since we’d broken up, trying to hang on to a sliver of his life.

But there was nothing. On WhatsApp he was hardly online.

I hovered over his old messages and didn’t even try to stop the tears that came when I did.

‘You need to do your exercises,’ Niall begged me one evening.

‘What’s the point?’ I replied, pulling the duvet over my head.

Niall sat on the end of my bed. ‘The point is, you could be left with a permanently rubbish leg if you don’t.’

‘I don’t care,’ I replied. And I didn’t. Because even if I had a working leg, I still probably wouldn’t make the team and I still wouldn’t have Shane.

‘What would Sadie think?’ Niall went there.

‘I don’t care,’ I said with less conviction. I’d be mortified if she saw me like this.

‘Lexie, what can we do to help?’ Niall sounded desperate now.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nobody can do anything .’

And then my phone rang. I held my hand over my mouth. It was Shane. Shane who hadn’t spoken to me since we’d broken up. Who’d ignored all my messages and phone calls, who made my heart stop.

I looked at Niall in panic. He nodded at the phone.

‘Answer.’

I picked it up before it rang out. ‘Hello?’

‘Lexie,’ Shane said.

He sounded different. Quieter, like he was tired, or like he’d been crying.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked, my heart thudding in my ears, forgetting everything else when I heard the pain in his voice.

‘I want to explain what happened. Everything. I need you. I’m at the hospital, the Royal. Can you come? I’m sorry, I just can’t do this by myself.’ He sounded panicked now, his voice shaking.

‘Shane, are you OK? What happened?’ And now I was panicked too.

‘It’s my dad. I’ll explain when you get here. I’ll meet you in the cafe.’

‘OK, see you soon.’

I hung up the phone and Niall stared at me, waiting to be filled in.

‘Can you drive me to the hospital?’ I asked him.

‘Shit, what happened?’

‘Something to do with his dad. He sounded really weird.’ My eyes welled thinking about the pain in his voice and the growing fear in my gut.

I tied my hair up in a high ponytail and didn’t bother putting on any make-up.

‘Mum, I’m just going out with Niall,’ I said, when I made it downstairs.

She studied my face. ‘Lexie, are you OK? Did something happen?’

‘I’m fine. I just need to meet a friend,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you everything later, I promise.’

She just nodded and opened the door for me.

Niall drove quickly to the hospital. ‘Give me a call when you’re done.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, then reached over and hugged him. It had been years since I’d hugged Niall, but I was so thankful for everything. How he’d helped with the recovery, how he’d gone back to being the Niall I knew and loved.

‘Do you want me to come in?’ Niall asked, concern on his face.

I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine.’

I got out of the car and made my way through the hospital, up the escalator, into the lift and looked for the cafe. I didn’t have to look too hard. He was sitting in the window, his Adidas jacket zipped right up to his chin, staring into the cup his hands were clasped round. I could barely breathe.

‘Shane,’ I said.

He looked up and his face was as blotchy as mine.

I sat beside him, and he looked at my crutches.

‘What happened?’ He looked horrified.

I shook my head. ‘I’m fine. I’ll tell you later. What’s happened to you ?’

‘My dad. He had a fall. I wasn’t there. It was my fault.’

‘Your dad? What was your fault? Why?’ I lifted the cup from his hands and took them in mine instead. He turned to look at me and my heart ached. He looked so broken.

‘I never told you. That was the thing I couldn’t tell you.’

‘Told me what?’

He inhaled. ‘Dad, he can’t walk. He had an accident when I was wee, about seven or something.

He’s a quadriplegic. Me and my mum, we’re kind of like his carers.

’ He took his hand away and pushed it through his hair, hard.

‘I mean, sort of. We do the best we can. And Mum never wanted to ask anyone else for help, so we didn’t.

And then I met you and, Lexie, you were like a drug, and I became so selfish.

Like I spent so much time with you when I should have been at home, but I couldn’t help it.

I loved it. I loved you.’ He looked like he was going to cry again.

‘Oh, Shane. I’m sorry it was so hard to tell me,’ I said, emotions forcing their way to the surface again.

The story of my life. I wished right then I was better, that I was warm and open, so that everyone could just tell me whatever they wanted.

I wished I didn’t have this stupid wall that people found impossible to break through.

I inhaled, trying to steady my emotions.

This wasn’t about me. ‘I wish you’d felt like you could tell me. ’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not your fault.

The way you talked about my dad, the way your face lit up when I told you all that great stuff about him, I wanted him to have that.

I wanted someone else to think of him the same way I did.

He’s class, he really is. And I should have been there,’ he said, ‘but I was at Ferndale, talking to Raj at training, and I stayed late, and I even told Raj it was OK, that Mum was there, but I knew she had to leave to go to work. I was supposed to be back. Stupid. So stupid. I should have been there.’ He shook his head.

‘Oh, Shane.’ I squeezed his hand and just let him talk in rapid emotional bursts.

‘If I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened, he wouldn’t have hit his head.’

‘It’s just you and your mum?’ I asked gently.

He cried then. He let go of my hand and shoved his hands into his eye sockets. I put my hand on his hair, stroking it, knowing that there was nothing I could say to make anything better.

‘Will he be OK?’ I asked, terrified of the answer.

‘They think so. It’s just so much more complicated because of his condition.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

I felt ridiculous then, selfish and stupid.

Here was Shane dealing with all of this, and I had been moaning about not being able to play football for a while.

I disgusted myself. But maybe I could help him.

I noticed as soon as I got there, his haunted eyes softened slightly, like a weight had been lifted.

‘I should have told you,’ Shane said. ‘It was never that I thought you wouldn’t understand. I was just enjoying being a normal teenager for once. And you were so focused on your football. I didn’t want to give you any other distractions.’

Is that how it had looked to him?

‘But I knew, that night at your house, and at the funfair, when you let yourself relax, that you had that easy side too, and I meant it when I said I loved you. You made me so happy, Lexie. That night at your house? Best night of my life. It’s just been so hard the last few years with school and everything, and nobody really seems to understand.

It felt easier to keep it to myself, instead of putting it all on somebody else. I thought I was helping you.’

I shook my head. ‘How could it help me? I love you, Shane.’

He looked like he was going to cry again so I leaned into him, and we hugged, with my head in his neck, filling my lungs with his scent, and desperately thinking of anything to make him feel better.

‘I love you too,’ he whispered.

‘And that kiss. I didn’t kiss him. I wouldn’t. I would never …’ I pulled away so he could see my face and how much I meant it.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘When I calmed down and thought about it, it didn’t really make any sense.’

‘No sense,’ I agreed.

‘But what happened to you?’ He moved his chair back so he could get a good look at my leg.

‘Tore my calf, like, pretty badly,’ I said.

‘Jesus, Lexie.’ He leaned down and stroked my leg. ‘That must have been so sore.’

‘It was. But I’m OK.’

‘And when can you play again?’ He looked at me with so much worry that the gravity of my injury faded. Like I could see beyond myself and how it was just an injury that would get better; not like his dad who had to live with a disability for the rest of his life.

‘Not for a while,’ I said with a shrug.

It hurt to say it, but not as much.

‘Oh, Lexie,’ he said, knowing what that meant.

‘I don’t know who I am without football,’ I said sadly.

‘Football is the least interesting part of who you are,’ he said without hesitation.

‘You’re clever and funny, and I know it might sound like a lie, but I’ve never told anybody else all the things I told you.

Like about Dad’s depression and how I’m not that into football.

You’re so much more than football, Lexie.

’ He twisted his fingers through mine and stared right into my soul.

When I didn’t know what to say, he continued. ‘Would you ever think of joining Ferndale United with me?’ He looked at me, gauging my reaction.

I cocked my head in thought. I’d never have considered it before.

Westing was all I wanted. Westing was what I needed.

But what if he was right? Maybe football wasn’t all I was?

I thought about the times I’d left a match upset, left training upset, the hours I’d spent planning how to get on to the team.

I wouldn’t have to do that at Ferndale. They were in a division way below Westing, and I don’t know, maybe it could be fun?

‘I’ll definitely think about it,’ I said.

‘Yeah?’ he asked. And to see him light up a bit, through his despair, gave me hope.

Maybe it wasn’t any of the other stuff that mattered, but this – these moments that made us laugh and cry and hold each other when nobody else would do.

Because being here right now, as a crutch for Shane, felt better than any award I’d ever won or any compliment on my football skills. And that thought was mind-blowing.

‘Can I meet him?’ I asked. ‘I mean, not now or anything, but some time when he’s feeling better?’

‘Yeah, I think he’d like that,’ said Shane. ‘He keeps asking about you.’

I felt a rush of love when I realized that meant he’d told his parents about me.

‘The whole football thing, it was always for him. He was mad keen on me getting scouted and trying to go pro, that’s why I joined Westing, even though we can barely afford it.’

‘You should tell him,’ I said gently. ‘That you’ve gone back to Ferndale.’

‘It’ll break his heart.’

I squeezed Shane’s hands like he’d squeezed mine. I bet his dad would only want him to be happy.

Then a woman came into the cafe.

She was thin with greying hair and was wearing a long dress with a cardigan over it. She looked over at us. ‘Shane? He’s awake. He’s asking for you,’ she said.

I could sense him relax beside me.

‘Thank God,’ he whispered.

‘I’ll see you soon?’ I asked, standing up.

Shane waited until his mum had walked away before standing up too. He leaned down and kissed me gently on the forehead.

‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘And, Lexie?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Thanks. For everything. Can we maybe … try again?’ He looked at me like he was scared I was going to say no.

How could I? When he’d come back into my life like sunshine after months of rain.

‘I’ll do better,’ he said. ‘I promise. No more secrets.’

‘I’ll do better too,’ I promised.

I was quiet on the way home with Niall. Not in a bad way, just thinking about the logistics of moving to Ferndale United. But the more I thought about it, the better an idea it seemed.

‘You OK?’ Niall asked.

I inhaled. ‘I was thinking about joining Ferndale United when I’m better.’ I liked how it sounded out loud, and I loved the relief that came with it.

‘What?’ Niall almost ran a red light. ‘Ferndale, are you serious? They’re shite.’

I pushed his arm. ‘Hey!’

‘It’s just facts. But why?’

‘I have a feeling it will be way more fun than Westing and, let’s face it, I’m never getting scouted. I’m barely even getting on the team,’ I said.

‘Lex … but … well, maybe it is a good idea. Maybe both of us get too stressed out with football.’

‘I think you’re right,’ I agreed.

‘Do it,’ he said.