Mum always used to tell people that Marc's first word was 'ball' and that mine was 'Dad'. Kinda messed up that there are moments that end up defining your character before you even have a choice.

Marc's face.

Blank expression, but he's blinking. His hair's shaved. Mouth closed. Thick neck. Strong jaw. His Adam's apple moves as he swallows. Skin is perfectly smooth.

Then there's something on his left cheek, a dot underneath his left eye. It's red. And it's turning into a line.

Like someone is drawing it. Like he's being cut with an invisible scalpel.

The cut grows, curving up towards his eye, splitting skin. But there's no blood. Just a clean red line. His expression shows no sign of pain.

His left eye closes as the cut crosses over it on to his forehead. It reaches half way up and then stops.

His fingertips dig under the skin at the bottom of the line and he pulls.

The skin comes away from his face, like wrapping paper, but there's no blood, just more skin underneath that's a shade lighter and it's someone else's eyes. It's a younger face. Skin perfectly smooth.

It's my face.

It's me.

I'm walking through the graveyard before the hill up to college, reading the epitaphs of strangers on the mossy gravestones.

Most of them seem to be for kids and there's something really creepy about seeing a name carved into stone above two dates only three or four years apart.

Noah asked us to watch a film we like and choose a scene to use in the lesson and I realise that I'm excited.

As I step out of the graveyard on to the pavement, I see Leia across the road, starting up the hill. I think about calling out to her, but it doesn't feel right, then the blond kid from film studies comes up from the underpass steps behind her.

I hang back, pretending to check my phone, and watch him catch Leia up. I stay on this side of the road and keep a good distance as they walk together, and I want to know what they're saying. The blond kid is talking and gesturing, using his hands like he's pitching an idea. He's probably chatting her up. I hate him.

Everyone sits in the same seats.

I'm staring at the blond kid as Noah starts saying how he believes the best way to learn is to actually do stuff instead of just talking about it, and how, by Christmas, he wants us all to have our own draft scripts. A sheet of A4 paper goes round the class for us to all write our personal email addresses on. He wants them so he can send us links to check out. A couple of people look at each other wondering whether that's even allowed. They gave us individual college emails in the first week, but everyone still writes their real one down for him.

Leia's wearing a big grey sports sweater. The kind that looks like a hand-me-down, and that you can only wear if you have that 'I don't care what anyone thinks' air. The sides of it are hugging her chest and I'm absolutely not stealing looks whenever I get chance.

We're supposed to write a description of the scene we chose from our film and hand it in at the end of the lesson. Noah says it's a good way for him to get to know us that he wants to get to know us through our choices. I look at him and try to figure out if it was him I saw in the car on Saturday night.

It could've been.

The room is bubbling.

It's not like at school, where the teacher would be telling people to shut up every two minutes. People are chatting and moving around and nobody else seems to be surprised by it, so I try not to be. The blond kid keeps looking over at Leia and I can feel myself staring at him like a guard dog or something, and I know I'm being stupid, but I can't help it. I want him to see my face.

I'm writing about the scene in Reservoir Dogs where Tim Roth is practising his monologue so he's got an anecdote about something criminal and nobody else in the crew will suspect that he's an undercover cop.

I'm writing how I like that we see him practise. How I like it when we get to see the little things that happen before or after the action.

How I think most people don't really consider what happens before they show up at a party, or what someone who isn't the 'hero' is thinking in the moment, and even though I don't like a lot of Tarantino movies, Reservoir Dogs would probably be in my top ten films ever. I'm writing all this stuff and it feels brilliant.

"Not saying much today are you, Mr Jedi?" Leia doesn't look up from her page as she speaks.

I can't see what she's writing about and I want to ask, but the blond kid watching us is making me angry.

"Let me guess," she says. "Another love story?"

"No." And the word comes out of my mouth much colder than I meant it to.

"All right, easy Skywalker." She's looking at me now and I read the word RUSHMORE at the top of her page.

"My name's Luke," I snap, and I look at her without blinking. Leia looks a bit surprised and she's about to say something back when the blond kid is standing in front of our desk.

"How's it going?" He's looking at just her. His voice sounds like he's completely relaxed, like the lesson is happening in his house and we're just guests.

Leia says, "Fine. Simeon, have you met Luke?"

Simeon?

Simeon looks at me, then back at Leia.

"You always find the interesting looking ones, don't you?"

What did he say? I feel my face turning away from them and I go over the last word I wrote with my pen. He already knows her. Leia puts her pen down. "He's the strong silent type." And the fact that they clearly know each other and are talking about me is making my skin crawl.

Simeon holds out his hand.

"Good to meet you, Luke. I'm the platonic ex." What?

"What?"

I look up at Simeon. His skin is perfect. Platonic ex?

"Yeah, me and Leia go way back." He smiles his Marks & Spencer smile.

I feel completely awkward, like I'm the new cast member on some teen sitcom that's been running for years and my eyes are darting round the room, checking if people are watching. Nobody is. Leia turns in her seat. "Ignore him, Skywalker. He likes to cause trouble."

Take his hand. Let him know.

I shake Simeon's hand, trying not to squeeze too tight and be that pathetic guy who has to demonstrate his masculinity, but firm enough to let him know I'm choosing not to.

Our hands part and Simeon leans forward, trying to read my writing. My arm instinctively curls round my paper, covering it up. Simeon smirks. "All right Scorsese, I wasn't trying to steal your ideas." Him and Leia are smiling and I know it's uncalled for, but I just want to punch him in the face. He wouldn't be able to stop me and it would pop the awkward bubble he's got me in. One punch and he'd be out.

"Anyway, we still up for the Electric later?"

Leia says, "Yeah," then looks at me. "You up for it? They're showing Ghostbusters One and Two. Classics."

And it's horrible. All of it, the staring, the nickname, his face, the fact that they're cinema buddies, her smiling.

"No," I say. "I'm busy."

Leia's face straightens, but she doesn't seem that bothered.

Then people start packing up for the end of the lesson and I'm so glad I get to leave, I think I actually smile.

I buy a jacket potato from the refectory and take it all the way down the hill to the graveyard to get away. I sit on a bench dedicated to a man called Harold who used to clean the graves. A couple of crows are fighting over what looks like a chicken bone in front of a dirty white marble stone slumped at an angle.

I'm telling myself I have no real reason to be angry, that I knew a lot of people would already know each other and be all confident and that. But him? Her ex? Mr Squeaky Clean 'I'm a young Brad Pitt' Simeon?

Forget her. Keep to yourself. You're not like this lot.

I dig a crater into the tuna with my white plastic fork. She said he likes to cause trouble. Maybe he was just saying it to wind her up, test me out.

She didn't deny it though, did she?

She didn't. How long did they go out for? Why are they still friends? Is that the kind of boy she likes?

I'm digging into yellow potato now. If he's her type, then ...

Digging with my fork.

They're just a bunch of rich kids, they're not like you, forget them.

But she seemed cool. Still digging.

Did she stare?

The fork hits the bottom of the box.

Did she stare?

I'm still pressing.

The fork snaps.

Yes. She stared.

I get off my second bus early and walk round to Dad's place.

I use the key he cut for me and, as I climb the dark stairs, I remember the afternoon I helped him move in. A year and a half ago. I remember watching his big body almost get wedged between the walls as he climbed up to the small attic studio flat. It'd been coming for a while; Marc getting sent down was just the rock that tipped the scales.

I come here sometimes when Dad's at work. Mostly I just watch a film and then leave. The whole place is the size of our living room.

The only window is the skylight and in the afternoon it shines a rectangular spotlight on to the floor where the white lino of the kitchen corner meets the mud-brown carpet. It's like a rubbish fairytale: The Giant Who Lived in the Box Attic.

The sofa bed's still folded out and the sheets are strewn. There's an extra-large pizza box on the floor by the TV and empty lager cans on the draining board. I open the skylight to try and let out the man smell and start to tidy up. I stuff all the rubbish into a bin bag. I scrub the two plates and mug that have clearly been there for a few days. I fold the thin mattress of the bed back into a sofa and I use the dustpan and brush to sweep the carpet underneath. It feels like setting up a board game.

When I'm done, I sit on the sofa and look round the room. I always imagine this place is mine. My own flat, away from everyone. Just a toilet, sink, fridge, sofa, TV and enough DVDs to get lost in.

Simeon. The platonic ex. Forget them.

On the tiny chest of drawers in the corner to my left there's a photograph of all four of us at Frankie & Benny's. Dad got the waiter to take it. Him and Mum are in the middle, with Marc and me on the outsides. I take it from the drawers and hold it in my lap.

It's Marc's fifteenth birthday, so I'm eleven, fresh-faced, smooth skin, my hair longer and parted at the side. I remember Mum burning her mouth on her calzone and sucking an ice cube, Dad doing the ice-cream sundae challenge and winning a T-shirt.

I touch my face in the picture, feeling the smooth hard glass. Then it catches the light and I see my reflection. My face now, superimposed over our family. Breathe.

The afternoon quiet of the room. Just me on a fold-up sofa, in a shady attic, holding the past in my lap. Somewhere now, in a house probably twenty times bigger than this place, Leia is getting ready to go to the cinema with her platonic ex and his perfect skin.

I leave the photo on the sofa and lower down into press-up position, but on my clenched fists, like Marc used to do them. My weight presses down through my knuckles into the floor as I start and the pain is good. One, two. I turn my head to the side and my eyes run along the spines of the DVDs against the skirting board. Three.

Guilt is the worst. Four. Burn me with angry, choke me with sad, anything but guilt. Five, six. Guilt lives in your skin, like lead. Seven. Sitting there, heavy. Eight. And poisonous. Nine. Telling you not to forget. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

I see Ghostbusters, the white letters against black, and I stop. I can feel the muscles across my back pulled taut as I stay there, suspended, my knuckles raw from the friction and the pressure, and I see Leia, giggling as she hands the usher her ticket, Simeon smiling next to her as he wraps his tanned arm round her shoulders. I stare at the DVD.

"Come on, sleepy." Dad's voice wakes me up. I feel the pain in my neck as I sit up from resting on the sharp arm of the sofa bed. The light is on and through the skylight I can see a rectangle of black sky.

"Your mum was worried. Since when do you come on a Monday?"

I shrug. Dad nods. "I'll drop you back." His hands are smeared with oil as he ejects the Ghostbusters DVD and files it back into the row on the carpet.

I look at my phone and see four missed calls from Mum. It's half ten. She'll already be at the hospital. Dad hands me a twenty pound note. "Here, for cleaning up the place."

He smiles. I take the money. "Thanks, Dad."

"Come on, I wanna get to the chippy before it shuts." He rubs his barrel stomach as I pull on my trainers and follow him out the door.

EXT. NIGHT An old black Vauxhall Astra drives along the night-time road, reflected streetlights rolling over its bonnet.

"So it's going all right, then?"

He's watching the road as he drives and I'm thinking, every conversation feels easier in the car. Staring forward and talking should be standard procedure.

"Yeah," I say, "It's fine."

"Not too much homework?"

"We've only just started really. It'll be fine, Dad."

We're behind the same bus that I catch home from town.

Dad glances my way. "And what about girls?"

I think about Leia and Simeon and my legs tighten. "No."

Dad shrugs his boulder shoulders and I notice he's not wearing his seatbelt again. "What? I'm just asking. New pond, new fish, strapping young shark like yourself. You'll make a killing."

I shake my head. "What the hell does that even mean? Sharks? In a pond?"