Max, a fifth-year student with an alarming fondness for cheese sandwiches, had always admired his younger neighbour, Emily. With her long golden plaits and a mischievous freckled face, she was hard to overlookmuch to Maxs eternal embarrassment. He often walked Emily home, acting as her unofficial bodyguard against the local gang of playground bullies whose main hobbies included intimidating small children and stealing their footballs.
But life, being utterly unpredictable, threw a curveball. Emilys dad fell seriously ill and passed away after a difficult battle. Emilys mum, unable to cope, turned to the bottlea regrettable choice that led to neglect and sometimes forgetting to feed Emily. Eventually, Emily stopped going to school altogether. At first, Max thought shed caught a nasty cold, but as weeks turned into months, his concern grew. So, he bravely approached his own mum for answers.
She broke the news gently, over a cuppa: Max, love, Emilys gone to a childrens home. Maxs heart sank, realising he might never see her again. Years rolled by. Max, now a grown-up, returned to his hometown after finishing his stint in the army (mostly peeling potatoes and polishing boots). One day, he bumped into Emily by sheer accident. She was strolling hand-in-hand with her husband, her belly unmistakably large beneath her winter coata proper bun in the oven, as they say. Their reunion was fleeting, and four years raced by without another glimpse.
Their paths crossed once more when Emily came back to town. Now a single mum, her husband having met a tragic end in a street brawl thanks to his fondness for the pub. Emily was left alone to raise her little boy. Whenever Max saw her, something stirred deep in his chestlikely not just indigestion. He began to realise their lives were tangled together by fate. Emily and her son needed him, and Max knewthis timehe was ready to step up. And so he did.
