Page 61 of People Change

The physical damage to Jordan and Rob was much greater than the damage to Shirin and Kian. And when it was taken to Mr Rodgers, the blame was put on Kian. Kian had used a weapon on a student. Kian had bruised a student’s ribs. Kian had taken it too far, just like his brother had done. When Kian tried to defend himself, to say all the things they had done to Shirin, then and in the past, Mr Rodgers raised a hand and said, ‘This is the first we’ve heard of any of this. I gave you a chance, Kian. I thought you were different from your brother.’ He shook his head, the picture of disappointment. ‘I’m sad to say I was wrong. Violence at North Oak cannot be tolerated.’

Kian was given a one-week suspension from school, but they were near the end of the school year anyway. They only had to sit their GCSE exams, and so his mum made the decision to remove him from the school completely. To begin with, she was mad, shouted at him, threw her plastic slipper at him even.

A few hours later, though, she came into his room, sat on the edge of his bed where he was lying, and said she was sorry. ‘I didn’t listen to you when you said that school was bad,’ she said. Kian shrugged, his eyes red, looking off into the distance, not meeting her eyes.

His dad came into the room and Kian expected him to go off too, but he agreed; said when he’d moved to the UK people had always called him names, and he had experienced great prejudice. Kian was even more surprised when his dad also sat on his bed, and his parents reminisced about coming over from Iran, how they wouldn’t have changed it, but how hard it had been. They hadn’t thought it would be hard for him too.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kian said.

‘You were helping your friend,’ his mum said.

‘I know, but I took it too far. Like Mehdi. I was just so angry.’

His dad laid a heavy hand on his back. ‘We take things too far for the people we love.’

Kian shook his head. ‘It doesn’t make it okay though.’

‘You made a mistake, azizam,’ his mum said. ‘These boys, they sound like bad people. They bothered that girl again and again, and you wanted it to stop. You’re human.’ The justification sounded exactly like how they had justified what Mehdi had done – how far he had taken it.

‘I had a choice though. We all have choices, I’ve realised. I could simply have pushed them off Shirin and gone to the teacher. I could have hit them once. Everything we do, even if it’s for other people, is a choice we personally make. I really messed up.’

Suspended

Obviously there was shouting. It reverberated around Shirin’s house, a tsunami of blame and shame. It mainly came from Shirin’s dad, though her mum would sometimes interject. Words in Farsi, English, even Turkish. She was a disappointment. She was predictable. She was nothing like the daughter they wanted. What Shirin found most frustrating, apart from her dad’s spit hitting her face with every shout, was that no one asked her what had happened. No one wanted to hear her side of the story. It was all about Rob, Jordan, Tom and Kian. The boys were the focal point, and she – the person at the centre of it all – was both ignored and unfairly punished.

‘Suspended! My child is suspended from school for being in a fight?’ her dad shouted, his face visibly red, bleeding into his bald head, so that it was also red. ‘Why were you hanging around with these boys?’

‘We told you no boys until you’re older,’ her mum added, from behind Shirin’s dad. They hovered over her while she sat in the middle of the sofa, taking in their tirade. ‘What are we going to tell people?’

‘No, we never said that,’ her dad retorted. ‘No boysever.’

‘They were literally bullying me,’ Shirin said. ‘Kian was defending me – they were pushing me around.’

Her dad held his hand in the space between them. ‘Kian? Why was this Iranian boy defending you? Huh?’

She frowned and spluttered the next sentence, ‘Because he’s my friend!’

‘Girls and boys can’t be friends,’ he said. ‘You should never hang around with boys – let alone boys likehim,’ her dad went on, to which her mum muttered something in agreement.

‘Boys like him?’ Shirin repeated.

Her dad let out a long breath, waved his hand in the air and told his wife to speak to her daughter. He threw himself on the armchair close by, dejected, like he was the one who was being pushed around and punished for it. Shirin was still shaking, her body a bag of nerves and adrenaline, and it was two hours since it had all happened. She kept her gaze down at the Persian carpet, at the way the red and cream of the pattern had faintly bled together because her mum had insisted it was okay to wash it with hot water.

‘Kian comes from a bad family,’ her mum said. ‘We don’t hang around with people like them.’

This was the first Shirin had heard of this. ‘What? His dad is a dentist and his mum’s a nurse—’

‘His brother is in prison. They’re violent people. You can’t hang around with people like that. Look at what he did. Beating someone up with a rolling pin? We aren’t animals. Now you’re in trouble with the school, and they’re saying they might get the police involved.’

‘Those people are racist,’ Shirin said, her voice almost a shout. ‘They’re always bothering me. Always calling me a paki, making things up about me, pushing me around, and I don’t get whyI’mthe one in trouble now. Why no one cares about me.’

Her dad stood back up then and Shirin gulped, feeling the air shift. He gave her a long look. It terrified her more than when he’d been shouting at her.

‘You need to be stronger than this, Shirin. We had it much harder. I’m going to tell you one more time: if you want to live in this house, you won’t see this boy any more and you’ll behave. Understand?’

She nodded and he left the room. With just her and her mum remaining, Shirin let out a breath. Her mum sat next to her on the sofa and was quiet for a moment, before saying, ‘You need to remember your future, azizam. If you hang around with someone like him, he will get you in trouble. I didn’t want to say it in front of your dad, but the school said your suspension might go on your record. It might affect the university you want to go to. You always said you wanted to go to a university in another city – don’t let this boy be the reason you can’t. Remember your future, Shirin.’

It was this that got it into Shirin’s head that maybe they were right. The thought of being stuck with her parents, in this city with people who hated her, spun in her head. Kian meant so much to her, but she knew she would need to distance herself from him if she wanted to get out of here. She had to put herself first.