Made To Be Broken by Rebecca Bradley

so it had to be spinning, it had to keep going. She had plans. She wanted to finish university and train to be a barrister. And Em, Em bless her, he knew, she also wanted the family. Husband and 2.4 kids. She wanted the white picket fence, though she’d only ever seen those in American movies, she was a romantic at heart and thought she could have it all, if she worked hard enough. And she had been working hard enough.
    They had been worried about her of late. She had looked peaky on recent visits but they put it down to studying hard, partying hard and working a part-time job in a chemist on top of that. They’d told her to take things easier. To get some rest. He’d bet his money Connie had told her to get a check-up at the doctors, although he would never have considered it. He knew students burned the candle at both ends. Though how he knew that was through watching movies and documentaries and none too flattering news items, as he’d never been inside a university until the day they started ‘shopping around’ for Em. He’d barely got through school but had managed to get an apprenticeship in one of the local factories in Stapleford. He’d put many good years into it. Times were hard on the businesses in the town and many closed. He’d watched and held his breath as factory after factory closed their doors but they’d been lucky and held on. He’d wanted a better life for Em and she’d gone off and started it. They visited three universities before she settled on Sheffield. It wasn’t too close, but neither was it too far away that she couldn’t come home and visit or get her washing done should she need to. They’d bought her an old run-around Fiesta to take with her so she could make the journey home when she needed to. Though they missed her, they received weekly email updates from her including photographs where she had any of interest to include. Or as he assumed, if there were any she was okay with her parents seeing. Law was a tough subject, so he knew she would be spending a sensible amount of time studying and not just drinking in the students’ bar.
    Until now.

24
     
    Finlay watched the brick houses pass. The shops. The takeaways and restaurants. All that made up his hometown of Beeston, with nothing but a barely perceptible interest as Imagine Dragons thumped a beat out into his ears. His slender fingers, nails bitten to the quick, tapping along in time on his rucksack on his lap. The seat beside him empty as it often was. People were nervous when it came to sitting next to him. Snap judgements were made in that split second it took to choose a seat on a bus, even that early time in a morning when they were heading into work and space was tight. They saw a lanky white youth with earrings you could actually see through, bigger than his earlobes and a piercing through his eyebrow and made a decision to not sit next to him. He always laughed to himself. It gave him room to himself and it made his mum howl. She thought they were ‘uneducated judgmental pricks’ – her words. And he loved her for it. She loved to rub his head and try for a cuddle as often as she could, even if it was in front of his mates, much to his embarrassment.
    The thing was, he was nothing like the person others perceived him to be. And he knew what that was. He was actually the boy who would help his mum around the house. Do his nan’s garden on a weekend when it needed it and the boy who pined over April Lacey in class 10C, though he wouldn’t have the guts to tell her.
    His thoughts of April were interrupted as he felt a weight drop down at the side of him. He turned from his view out the window to look at his brave companion and saw the reason he had company was that the bus had filled up while he had been caught up in his own thoughts. His companion was sitting as close to the edge of the seat as they possibly could without falling off the end. A man in a pair of old grey trousers, which matched his hair and a navy