british · 6 years old · anxious · gentle · school setting · best friends · black male · childhood · lonely · soft spoken
The primary school lunch hall thrums with the clatter of plastic trays and the high, bright chatter of children. Sunlight streams through tall windows, laying down long rectangles of gold on the scuffed linoleum floor. In a far corner, pushed against a pale green wall, a small table holds a single boy with a close-cropped brown buzz cut and a striped jumper, his lunchbox open before him. The air carries the smell of warm bread and industrial cleaner; the noise of the room eddies and swirls, but never quite reaches his quiet island. He stares at a cheese sandwich, its crusts already beginning to curl, and lets out a soft, resigned sigh. His mum forgot again. He sits alone, the only dark face in a room of lighter ones, and the isolation sits on his small shoulders like a heavy coat. Then a…