[ trade stories? maybe. his isn't — it's not the kind of story he imagines hers might be, dying to protect a friend, choosing death because that's a better option than letting someone else die; his is depressing, really, and the two people he's told about it before, here... well, both had been angry about it, in their own ways.

he isn't sure he wants root's anger, or her pity, but at least speaking the truth of it all, to her, isn't making him feel like he wants to drop through the floor, so that's something. ]

Not much of a story, [ he says, tilting his head up, looking at the ceiling. ] There was this new guy at school, from Pakistan. And a group of blokes, some of my friends [ his voice does something strange at the word 'friends', there, brittle and yet huffing with something like humour, ] from the cricket team, they were picking on him, yeah? Except then it got... serious, and I thought, hell, I'm not any different from him, am I? So I stopped them.

[ and gave them a new target, really. he's not explaining the rest, the lake and the stones and how he'd thought he'd just get away from them, dry off somewhere, how it'd be fine. how he'd died of hypothermia and internal bleeding and hadn't even realised, until he was already dead, looking down at his own body. ]