The Person Everyone Misunderstood

By the time Hannah Price got to Lecture Theatre B, the argument had already started. “I’m telling you, he’s just up himself,” Tom was saying, spinning a pen between his fingers. “Last year he was the one who sorted everyone’s problems. Now? He walks past you in the corridor and doesn’t even say hi.” “Maybe he thinks he’s too good for us now,” Charlotte added, not bothering to lower her voice. “Some people get a decent grade and forget where they came from.” Hannah slid into the second row and pretended to arrange her notes. She knew exactly who they were talking about. Everyone at Crestfield University did. Kieran Ashby. She had known him in first year, back when Kieran was the loudest laugh in every room. He was the course rep who talked lecturers into moving deadlines, the one who organised five-a-side. matches between departments, the one who stayed behind to help people who didn’t understand organic chemistry. If you needed anything, you said, “Let’s ask Kieran.” Then second year began, and Kieran vanished while still being physically present. He still came to lectures. He still sat at the back, near the exit, with his old black backpack held against his chest like it contained something fragile. But he no longer joined conversations. He didn’t turn up to department socials or the Thursday night pub quiz. When people invited him anywhere, he gave the same short answer: “I can’t.” No explanation. No apology. Just that. “Hannah.” Charlotte had noticed her. “You’re the new course rep. Don’t tell me you’re going to be one of those people who defends him.” “I haven’t said anything,” Hannah replied. “Because there’s nothing to say. He changed. Simple as that.” Hannah looked toward the back of the theatre. Kieran had just walked in. He was thinner than she remembered, and his shirt, though clean, looked like it had been washed too many times. His eyes swept the room once, quickly, the way a person checks for exits, and then he took the corner seat and opened a notebook. If he had heard what was said about him, nothing in his face showed it. The lecture was Dr. Whitfield’s Medical Bacteriology, a module that ate students alive. When it ended, the lecturer raised his voice over the sound of zipping bags. “Before you go! Group projects. Pairs. Your partner is on the board. It’s due in three weeks and it’s worth fifteen per cent of your module mark, so I don’t want to hear any excuses.” Groans rolled across the theatre. Students crowded the whiteboard, and Hannah waited until the crush thinned before approaching. She found her name near the bottom. Hannah Price, Kieran Ashby. Her stomach dropped. She wasn’t afraid of him. She was afraid of the next three weeks of being the one who had to chase him, with the entire year group watching for the drama. “Brilliant,” she muttered. “Brilliant what?” She turned. Kieran stood two steps behind her, looking at the board. Up close she could see the shadows under his eyes. They were the shadows of someone who hadn’t slept properly in a very long time. “We’re partners,” she said, trying to sound casual. “For the project.” “I saw.” His voice was flat, careful. “I’ll do my part. You don’t need to worry about me slowing you down.” “I wasn’t worried,” she lied. Something flickered across his face, too quick to name. “Good.” He shifted the bag on his shoulder. “Send me whatever you want me to research. I’ll get it back to you before the deadline.” “We should probably meet. To plan, I mean. Maybe the library after—” “I can’t.” There it was again. Hannah felt irritation rise in her chest, hot and quick. “Do you know that’s the only thing you say anymore?” He didn’t flinch. He just looked at her for a moment, as if deciding whether she deserved more. Then he said quietly, “I know.” And he walked away. “See?” Tom said when she told them at lunch. They were crowded around a sticky table in the Students’ Union café, eating jacket potatoes out of cardboard trays. “That’s what I’ve been saying. He’s full of himself.” “He didn’t even apologise,” Charlotte agreed. Hannah pushed her beans around with a plastic fork. “Maybe,” she said. “But when he said ‘I know,’ it didn’t sound arrogant.” “What did it sound like?” She searched for the word. “Exhausted.” Tom snorted. “Exhausted from what? He’s got no worries. His dad’s loaded, isn’t he? Didn’t he used to drive around in that little silver Fiesta?” That was true. In first year, Kieran had a small silver car and never pretended he didn’t. He gave people lifts and put petrol in the tank for friends who were skint. Everyone remembered that, and the memory had turned bitter, as though his generosity had been a loan the world now expected him to repay with friendliness. “I heard his family lost their money,” someone added. “I heard he’s just a snob now.” “I heard he got mixed up with some dodgy lot.” Hannah put her fork down. “Do you all hear yourselves? Three different stories, and not one of you has actually asked him.” The table went quiet. Then Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. You’ll see. Two weeks with him and you’ll be moaning like the rest of us.” Hannah did not plan to follow him that evening. She had stayed late in the science block finishing a lab report, and as she crossed the quad toward the halls of residence, the streetlamps were already glowing against the early dark. It was barely half four, and the November drizzle had settled into that fine, clinging kind that soaks you without ever seeming to rain. Then she noticed a familiar black backpack moving quickly along the path to the back gate. Not the main gate where students gathered for chips and gossip. The back gate, which opened onto a road she had never seen anyone use. She told herself she was only taking a shortcut to the bus stop. She wasn’t. Kieran didn’t go to the halls. He walked past them, past the bus shelter where the night buses idled, and kept going until he reached a narrow terraced street lined with small shops pulling down their shutters. Hannah hung back, feeling foolish and curious in equal measure. He stopped at a tiny corner shop. Through the open door she saw him speak to an older woman behind the counter, who handed him a small carrier bag and said something that made him bow his head. “Thank you, love,” Hannah heard him say. “I’ll bring the rest Friday. I promise.” “Don’t you worry, pet,” the woman answered gently. “Just go and look after them.” Look after them. Hannah’s heart stuttered. Kieran stepped back onto the pavement, checking the contents of the bag. She saw a loaf of bread, a small tin of powdered milk, and something that looked like a box of medicine. His phone buzzed, and he answered it immediately. “Yes. Yes, I’m coming,” he said. His voice was nothing like the flat, guarded one he used at university. It was soft and urgent. “No, don’t let her stand up. Tell Maddie to keep her lying down. I’m five minutes away.” He started running. Hannah stood frozen in the middle of the pavement as he disappeared around the corner, the black backpack bouncing against his shoulders. Everything she had heard that day, snobbish, cold, arrogant, wrong, rearranged itself in her mind. She didn’t know who “her” was. She didn’t know who Maddie was, or what the medicine was for, or why a boy who once topped up other people’s petrol tanks was now apologising to a shopkeeper over a balance of a few pounds. But she knew one thing for certain. Whatever Kieran Ashby was carrying, it wasn’t pride. And the whole university had gotten him completely wrong.