I was in the café, trying to get through my revision, when my mum walked in. She told me to take a day off, but I couldn’t. I had my maths GCSE coming up, and I was already a year ahead. I couldn’t afford to fall behind.
She joked about me practicing for the egg and spoon race, and I laughed, but I was exhausted. I’d been working late the night before, and I hadn’t eaten. I just kept telling myself I didn’t have time for a break. Then I saw my aunt Lisa, the detective.
She was talking to the café owner, Nina, about some case. I heard her mention Mel Rope, the guy who’d been attacked and was in a coma. I tried to ask her about it, but she shut me down. “You know better than to ask me about an ongoing investigation,” she said.
I tried to catch her off guard, but she wasn’t having it. She ordered a coffee and left. I went back to my work, but I couldn’t focus. My head was pounding, and my hands were shaking.
Nina noticed. “Sam, you don’t look yourself. Are you okay? ”
“I’m fine,” I said, but I wasn’t.
I hadn’t eaten all day. I’d been taking these pills I got from a kid at school. They were supposed to help me concentrate, but they were making everything worse. I tried to call my girlfriend, but I couldn’t even talk properly.
I just told her I needed to go. Nina kept asking if I was okay, but I couldn’t answer. The room was spinning. I remember her saying something about calling my dad, and then everything went black.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. My dad was there, looking terrified. “Sam, what happened? ”
I didn’t know.
I’d collapsed in the café and hit my head. The doctors found an empty packet of ADHD medication in my pocket. They thought I’d overdosed. But I don’t have ADHD.
I never told anyone I was struggling. I just wanted to do well in my exams, and I thought the pills would help. I didn’t realize how many I’d taken. My dad was furious.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were struggling? ”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “But then I was. As the exams got closer, I panicked.
”
He wanted to talk to the school, but I begged him not to. I didn’t want anyone to know. I promised I wouldn’t take any more pills, and he finally agreed to leave it for now. But there was something else.
Something I couldn’t tell him. There were these two people, and they’d been pressuring me. They’d threatened me to keep quiet about something. I couldn’t tell anyone, or they’d ruin me.
While my dad went to get food, a woman came in. She was supposed to be watching me, but she leaned in close and said, “You’ve been a very silly boy, haven’t you, Sam? ”
I told her to leave me alone. “I’m not going to do anything to you,” she said.
“As long as you don’t do anything to me and you stick to our agreement, yes? Do you understand? ”
I nodded. “Yeah, I understand.
”
I was trapped. I couldn’t tell anyone about the pills, and I couldn’t tell anyone about them. I was all alone.
