He started going off the rails when gramps passed away. Nothing sinister or untoward. He was just old. That didn't make it hurt less, because of all the people in his family that gave him any time to talk about stuff, gramps was the only one that chewed the fat. Ade thought that was a war thing. When you saw that up front it was bound to change you. A mate blown to pieces could alter life perspectives damn quick.

One you had the crack with over breakfast, gone in seconds. There one minute, not there the next. The smell of fresh rain on mud, the chill of air blowing a gale in wet clothes, boots full of water rotting your feet, the actual smell of flesh lacerated with bullets and screams of soldiers lying in the dirt waiting for medics that were just too damn busy. If movies came with smell-o-vision punters would be chucking up all over the place. Ade saw it all in gramps eyes and the way a rustic index finger tapped the side of his nose when a question got too close.

Gramps remembered the carefree days before, and then the bloodshed after. They were there. Ade felt it sitting in the living room when he visited. Living room. That always threw him too. So quiet, a bit like a morgue with just a clock ticking the time away until the moment to drop the coffin came. He often wondered if you could ever really come back after an experience like that. Yes, Ade sure missed gramps a whole heap of ways.

That was when Rowena the Goth found him. One afternoon during lunch at school, when he was leaning on the railings at the furthest edge of the playing fields. Having time out away from everything, lessons, mates, people. Space to just say cheers gramps and thank you for being the real parent; the one that cared.

“Go on then,” came a soft voice behind him.

Ade took no notice. He was there to be alone. Besides girls didn't speak to him outside class very often. The owner he couldn't place anyway.

“Are you gonna jump the fence or not?”

“What?” Ade hoped that had leave me alone irritation in it.

“I've seen you here every day for the last two weeks at least. Figured you were working up to blowing this joint.” She was still behind him.

“Yeah, well I might just do that. Life's a bitch then you die.”

“Thanks.”

Gramps cut him up there. Young un, it ain’t her fault. It rolled round his head for before he replied. “I didn't mean bitches as in girls. It’s just that stuffs messed up a bit.”

He turned round and things changed. Rowena the Goth as he'd never seen her before. Well, he had, just not paid any attention to her in school uniform. Her reputation was after hours. The black gear with silver bangles and purple highlights. Not forgetting the nose stud. Here she was kinda normal, uniform in the uniform and, well, gorgeous.

“I know that one Adrian.” She smiled.

Fuck, she knows my name. A freaking girl knows my name. Gramps tailed away. “What do you know about it?” Imbecile, why did I say that?

“This and that. Being the weirdo that everyone laughs at for a start.”

“Do they?” He was looking into her eyes. He liked the way they stared back. More than that though, they reminded him of the light in Gramps. The one that said, I know more than I let on young 'un.

She laughed and he knew she was the one. “Yes, they do.”

It may have been the glisten of tears in his eye that moved things on.

Nobody cared before and Rowena the Goth was hope.