Free Thorn in the Flesh by Anne Brooke

was built up where before there had been none. Was it on their part or hers? It was impossible to tell. And not fair on her students to expect them to deal with it either. They were too young.
    It was up to her.
    Asking what they’d thought about the exams brought a welcome focus to the meeting and she tried to concentrate all her thoughts on their mixed reaction of confidence and trepidation. It was strange how their words, slow at first and then more free-flowing, were drifting in and out of her consciousness and how their faces were floating near and then far away. What was happening to her? She shook her head and tried to smile and listen, but even then what she was hearing had no logic to it.
    Looking round the group, trying to catch the meaning of what she was being told and knowing how important it was, she realised nobody was talking now. They were silent, expectant, as if one of them – which one? – had asked a question only she could answer.
    She didn’t know what it had been. She couldn’t tell them anything. She’d let them down for the exams and now there was nothing she could give them. She was a fraud, a failure. What was she doing here?
    ‘Sorry? What did you say?’ she heard a voice, whispering, weak, drift out into the room’s strange emptiness and could hardly recognise it as her own. ‘I didn’t understand it.’
    ‘It’s just …’
    Kate turned to look at whoever had spoken. The movement seemed to take a long time and the weight on her shoulders felt as if she was being pressed down into the floor beneath. The young girl – Sal, she remembered, one of her brightest students – blushed beneath her unruly dark hair.
    ‘Yes?’ Kate said. ‘It’s just … what?’
    ‘It’s just … well, we’re so sorry. We’re sorry about what’s happened, but we’re glad you’re back, you know.’
    Sal trailed away, glanced at Kate and then glanced away again. Even as Kate acknowledged how much courage it must have taken her to say that, she felt her hands grow cold and an icy sweat broke out on her skin.
    ‘Thank you, but I must …’ she said, springing up. ‘I must … I’m sorry.’
    And then she was pushing through them, aware of startled expressions, looks of concern, and the sound of her own shoes fleeing across the thin carpet away from the prison of her office and her responsibilities.
    When she came to Andrew’s door, it was open and he was on the phone, his back to her. She tried to speak but no words came out. At least none that could be understood. Still she must have made a sound of some description or a sixth sense had told him she was there as he glanced round, one eyebrow raised. She gestured with her hands, for what purpose she couldn’t tell, then lifted her fingers to her face which felt wet, though she hadn’t been aware of crying.
    To his credit, he said nothing. As Kate stood trembling on the threshold, he got up, dropped the phone back onto its stand, waved her towards his chair and handed her a half-empty box of tissues. When she refused his offer of a drink of any variety, he shut the door, sat down opposite her and waited.
    ‘I’m sorry, Andrew,’ she said when she was able to. ‘I think I was wrong. I’m not ready for this. Not yet. I think I need to get away.’
    He reached forward, patting her hand once before leaning back again. ‘Kate, if you feel that’s the best way, then, yes, that is what you must do. Of course, you’ll have my full support. Where will you go?’
    When she opened her mouth to reply, to say: no that’s not what I mean, I don’t want to go anywhere, I just meant get away from here , that was when everything changed.
    Why not, she thought? My house, the town I live in, even my workplace no longer make me feel at ease. Perhaps I need to go somewhere where nobody knows anything about me or what has happened. Perhaps then I will know what to do.
    Her gaze drifted past the professor’s shoulder. Behind him, an old poster clung to the