He's nodding proudly. Noah nods back. "That's great, Pete. Listen, we need to go. I need to drop Luke home. We'll see you later, Pete. Good to see you."

And he starts walking down the aisle towards the tills. I follow.

Pete calls after us. "All right, Noah, good seeing you! I'll make some calls, sort a night out, eh? Like old times! Shiland boys on the town!"

INT. SUPERMARKET NIGHT Close-up: Girl's hand moves over scanner. Baby blue nail varnish.

Too many rings. Barcode beeping.

Noah loads the stuff from his basket on to the conveyor belt in silence. I stand next to him like his sidekick.

The girl on the till is not much older than me but she looks hard, her hair pulled back, eyebrows forced up. Her name badge says Kylie. She cuts Noah a look like she knows him, but he's not paying attention to her as he packs his bag and puts his card in the machine.

"I'm on Park Road, bottom end. You near there?" he asks.

I nod. "Linden Road. You sure it's all right?"

"Course it is," he says.

Then Kylie points at me. "Aren't you Marc Henry's little brother?" And every muscle goes tight.

She's looking right at me and I want to say no, but something won't let me.

So I nod, and I can feel Noah's eyes on me too, and I slide my hands into my pockets to stop them shaking.

"I thought so," Kylie says. "Liam, right?"

"Luke."

"That's it! Little Lukey. With the scar. You're bigger than I remember. You look a bit like him, you know."

I'm just nodding nervously like one of those little plastic dogs in the back of cars. Please let this be over. Please let this be over.

"We proper fancied Marc at school you know. All of us."

I watch Kylie drift off into a memory. Noah can see me squirming and says, "We should go, come on, Luke."

Kylie looks at Noah like she couldn't care less, then turns back to me.

"He's coming out soon, right?"

And I want to disappear. Not in front of Noah, please.

"Everybody was proper glad when he got Craig."

I can feel the heat in my face. She's staring right at me. "He got what he deserved, eh?" And I swear she's literally about to point to my scar, then Noah walks away.

I stand there, caught in her tractor-beam stare, then I follow him, walking sideways, split between where I'm going and where I've been.

"See you later, Lukey," she says. "Say hi to Marc for me, yeah? Kylie Burdle! I was in the year below him!"

I walk out the exit into the cold air. The side of my face on fire.

It's a Fiat Punto.

My legs are squashed against the glove compartment, but I don't say anything as Noah pulls out of the supermarket on to the main road. The air inside the car is thick with what just happened. Please don't ask about Marc. Please just leave it.

He's got one of those little traffic light air fresheners hanging from his rear-view mirror and his stereo is far too good for the car. I feel proper awkward. I should've walked.

We pull up to lights and we're just sitting there, looking forward. I shouldn't be here. I should get out the car.

I think about Dad and how he's probably in The Goose, talking to his work mates about everything except Marc, and it suddenly makes the most sense. What good will talking do?

"You said Linden Road, right?" Noah looks at me. I nod. The lights change and we pull off.

We're driving along streets I've always known but in this different car, with this new person, who says he's from here too, but who I don't really know. I pull my shopping bag closer into my lap, gripping the handle.

"A bag full of the past, eh?" says Noah.

And it sounds like a fortune cookie or something, but it makes perfect sense. A bag full of the past, that you have to carry around, weighing you down.

"Yeah."

I put my left elbow on the inside of the door and rest my face in my hand, staring out. I think of Leia. I wonder how pissed off she was. If she spoke our dialogue on her own, or if someone else helped. Simeon probably came to the rescue. I should've gone to the lesson. Should I ask Noah what happened? I should call her. Say sorry.

We're waiting behind a number eleven bus and he must know as well as I do that it's the bus that goes to the prison. Is he gonna say something?

Noah bangs both his fists on the steering wheel and I jump, nearly hitting my head on the inside of the roof.

"OK. Let's do it," he says. "One each."

"What do you mean?"

"One question each. You get one, then I get one, deal?"

We're both staring at the back of the bus, the amber indicator flickering.

"OK."

"Cool. You first."

"What did he mean, you were in a film?" I say.

Noah nods as he weighs up his answer, then shakes his head. "I wasn't in a film. I wrote one."

"You wrote a film?"

"Yeah. It was a while ago."

The bus pulls away and we follow.

"What was it called?"

"Hold on, that's your one question. My turn."

He glances at me. I look out of the window.

"So Marc Henry's your brother?"

Bam.

He knows Marc. Or he knows of Marc. Maybe he's heard what happened. He's from Bearwood, course he has. Maybe he already knew who I was. My throat's itching again.

This is too much. It feels like somebody just pulled my towel away. I press my face against my hand, feeling the heat pass from scar to palm as Noah waits for me to say something. Silence.

We pull up to the lights at the top of City Road.

My mind's racing. I can see Mum and Dad smiling at me from the kitchen table, and I can see Leia standing in the underpass and then Marc's there too, standing next to her.

"Luke, are you all right?"

But I'm already clicking my seatbelt and opening the door and my heart is going and I'm out of the car. What the hell?

The cold air is on me and I'm in the road. I don't know what I'm doing and the cars behind are honking their horns and I'm slamming the door shut, and walking off.

What's wrong with you?

I reach the pavement and see a black metal lamppost. I kick it full on and pain shoots through my toes into my right foot and up my calf. I'm so stupid, but I keep going, limping now.

"Luke!" Noah's calling through his open window, and the cars behind are honking more and I'm just hobbling, the cold biting at my neck and arms as I reach the alleyway between the flats. My heart is punching the inside of my chest, my foot's throbbing, and my face is on fire, but I'm not looking back. I don't look back once.

Fortune cookies are only good if they make sense. Otherwise it's just a greasy piece of paper inside a shit biscuit.

The warmth of the hall is amazing. I don't know how long I sat in the dark playground, but I'm cold, my foot still hurts and I still feel like an idiot as I watch Marc walk back into the living room. What must Noah think?

I ease the front door closed, letting the latch catch in slow motion. The living room's dark and I can smell Mum's lasagne as I stand in the doorway and squeeze my trainers off. Why's he sitting in the dark?

"You all right?" he says, in that patronising big brother way. I can't be bothered right now. I should text Leia. I need to watch a film.

He's sitting in the corner chair, his legs crossed in front of him, like he's meditating or something. I can see the white iPhone box in his lap.

"It's late, Lukey."

And it feels like one of those spy films when they have the mysterious meeting in the car park in the middle of the night and the informant speaks from the shadows. I can't make out his eyes, but he's wearing a dark vest and jogging bottoms, are they mine?

He clicks the lamp on and just sits there, staring at me. His strong cheekbones and full lips, his thick smooth shoulders on display. "I was worried, mate," he says, and I tell myself that this is what he's done for the last two years. Somehow, every night, he's escaped from his cell, made it here, quietly broken into the house and just sat in the corner chair, in the dark, all night, like some silent guard dog, leaving before we wake up, making it back to prison just before sunrise.

"You OK?" he says, and I can't deal with him. He was worried? I turn to leave the room. "Don't go, Luke." And something in his voice throws me off completely.

"I'll leave you to it." My voice stumbles over the words and I force a kind of smile as I step towards the door.

"Please, Luke?" And it's like the living-room carpet moves. A tiny tremor underneath my feet. Please? I cant remember him using that word to me, ever.

I sit down on the two-seater next to his chair, leaving a space between us and we're both just staring forward at our faint reflection in the TV and I feel the fingertips of dej vu tapping lightly on the back of my brain. Like we've been here, me and him. Or maybe I've dreamt it.

"There's stuff to be said, mate. Things we need to talk about. I know that." His words sound prepared. Like he's been rehearsing this. I don't say anything.

"It's OK," he says. "It'll take time."

And my mind is a montage of moments. Shots from the past playing silently on the inside of my skull. The pair of us in the car on the way back from the cinema, Dad driving, Marc in the front, me asking question after question from the back seat. Me and Marc vs Mum and Dad in a living room pillow fight, me switching sides and Marc almost crying with laughter as Dad holds him down and me and Mum pummel him with the throw cushions. Marc and Donna laughing in our kitchen, flour everywhere, their white hand prints all over each other as they try and make pancakes.

"I don't know what's gonna happen, Luke."

He's looking at me now, waiting for me to look at him. So I do.

"I honestly don't."

His face is telling me he wants me to say something that'll help, that I've got the power to do that. And I want to, but I can't.

I stand up.

"Luke." He's looking up at me. I'm looking down at him and it's weird and good and too much and I'm tired.

"I'm gonna go bed."

Marc nods, defeated. "Course. Night, big man."

He holds the iPhone box in his lap. I point to it. "You figure it out then?"

He looks down and shakes his head. "Not even opened it, to be honest. Who'm I phoning?"

And he's less man and more boy.

A boy who doesn't know what's gonna happen.

"What about Donna?" I say, and picture her behind the bar, pulling a pint.

Marc doesn't look up. "Yeah."

And I watch him picture her too, in a memory of his own.

"All right then." I'm walking out of the room.

"Lukey?"

I stop at the door again. "Yeah?"

"I was wondering, I kinda need to get some stuff, clothes and that, and thought you'd maybe come with me, tomorrow, like?"