TO HELP THE Year 10s reconnect with their craft after the September school holidays, Hale has them do Viewpoints. They pad around the room and engage their cores. They modulate their movement (by sitting, standing, sprinting, jumping, shouting GAH!) only when they feel the genuine impulse to, a connection to another, before returning their gaze to the black curtained den that is their classroom – and gliding on. It’s after this, when they’re puffing – and Molly most of all, as all she’s done for the past three weeks is eat Easy Mac and watch The Vampire Diaries – that Hale shepherds them into a circle.

Molly watches Hale’s small body fold easily into his preferred position: one leg pretzeled under the other, shoulders hunched in active listening. Everyone feels the same about Hale. Even Euri and Ellen and co, who look bored in every other class and who wear Docs and do cool things that Molly wishes she could do, like smoke and cry softly into each other’s chests and drink bubble tea. Whenever Hale turns his blue gaze to you, diamond earrings glinting, his eyes literally for real pierce your soul. Here, dressed in theatre blacks, they aren’t private-­school students. They don’t have greasy skin. They’re not even fifteen. They’re actors, and Hale’s opinion is everything. Molly has yet to impress him. She’s in her last term of Year 10 theatre. If she doesn’t make her mark soon, she never will.