Greg

 At some stage in the middle of Year 11, I met a boy called Greg. I am pretty sure we met at an interschool cross country. We then worked out that my school bus stopped at the bus interchange between North Tech and Shepp High so we could start seeing or "going with" each other. This basically just meant flirting with each other at the bus stop. It was all pretty innocent.

One day Mum drove me in to see him in Shepp and Greg and I went for a walk and lots of kissing happened down by the river. Nothing else Mum! 

Just before term 4 ended Greg's dad was reported as missing. It didn't take the detectives long to work out what had happened though and to discover the body. Greg was arrested as the prime suspect.

I hadn't been privy to any of what followed. I was only finding out what happened vicariously from his friends and what I read in the local paper at the high school library. At the murder trial Greg claimed his dad, who taught metalwork at North Tech, and by all reports was well-liked as a teacher, had been violent and sexually abusing him. Greg had found his Dad's rifle and shot his Dad while he slept in bed.

I was shocked to see my name had been mentioned in the court case as the notebook had been our means of communicating. Every day we would take turns taking the notebook home and write romantic things to each other in it and then pass it back the next day at the bus stop for the other person to write in. Kind of like passing notes in school but in a larger format but much, much slower. 

I was also worried I might get subpoenaed to give evidence or a character reference for Greg and in reality, we hadn't been dating for long and I didn't know him well enough to do that. 

This all happened back in the days when no mobile phones nor social media existed so I only heard secondhand through his friends what had happened after that. 

Greg was convicted of manslaughter and had to do time in juvenile prison. After that he went to live with his mum.