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‘Aren’t you even going to give me a chance to explain?’
The old man sighed, blew through his beard.
‘Go on.’
‘It’s not fair. Matty hasn’t even had a trial, but everyone’s already decided he’s guilty.’
I didn’t add that they’d decided I was guilty by association. Or that I thought they might be right, albeit for different reasons.
He scratched his head, disappeared his lips. From his expression I thought he was about to lay into me again, but when he spoke, his voice was gentle.
‘You’re right. We can’t know yet whether he’s guilty or not.’
Which was precisely my problem. As long as that question went unanswered, my guilt would remain.
I was sent back to class with a warning rather than a detention. I should have been pleased, but I wasn’t. A part of me wanted to be punished, to pay for what I’d done.
In Latin, I received another warning. A note from Sally Sniders, folded over three times and passed from desk to desk until it reached mine.
DON’T THINK IT’S OVER, she wrote.
I don’t, I thought.
Twenty years later it still isn’t.
