The day bleeds into nightfall

'The day's feel like years when I'm alone.'

Tuesday 23rd June 2037

'Where are you going?' A voice asks, dragging the fourteen-year-old out of her thoughts. 'Matilda, where are you going?' He had heard a noise in the kitchen, so he went to check. He hadn't bothered checking the time, it was light which meant nothing to him. His phone tells him a number, but it doesn't do anything for him. He can't process the numbers. When he speaks. He's shocked to hear his own voice, it feels like he hasn't spoken in forever. Yesterday, none of them spoke, not much. It had been a day, which felt like a lifetime. In that one day, it felt longer than the last nineteen years.

'School.' She says, taking a sip of the juice in front of her. 'I don't just wear my uniform for fun.' She snaps back, clearly irritable. He hadn't really seen her since the visit, they didn't want to be there when they spoke to the police. They had to go up to Birmingham on Thursday, to identify Ruby's body. There was so much they are going to have to-do, things they never thought they would have to face, this was their worst nightmare. This didn't happen to them, this was someone else's child. This was their life, it couldn't be their life.

'No, you aren't.'

'I bloody well am dad. I can't sit in my room forever.'

'Maddie.' She can see he's either been crying or he hasn't slept. Nor has she, but she wants everything to go back normal, and this is the first step. 'Now isn't the time.'

'I'm not asking you to take me, and I've got lunch.' She tells him, showing him some money. 'And my uniform is clean.

'Your mum doesn't want you to do.'

'And.'

'Please don't go.'

'Please dad, I have to go.' She tells him, feeling her eyes welling up. He doesn't get it, he wouldn't get it. The bed next to her, it should be filled with her sister. Her room should be messy because Ruby is too lazy to unpack. There's so much their room should be and so much their room isn't.

'Okay, I'll take you.' He tells her, 'let me get ready.' She nods, turning her back to her dad. He grabs yesterday's clothes, he doesn't bother checking on his son, if he wanted to go he would have said something. He knows that he's going to have to face their school, to tell them if Maddie acts up, it's because she is grieving.

The drive to school is silent, barely making it in time before the bell rings. Joe saunters his way to the front desk, it's an unfamiliar route, he's only ever been called into school twice and that was due to Maddie misbehaving.

'Hi, can I speak to Mrs Jax?'

'Do you have an appointment?' He wasn't expecting the hostile response from the receptionist. 'She's busy.'

'This is really important.' He stresses, as one of the senior managements comes out, he feels like he's going to burst into tears. He knows he has to do this though, Maddie wanted to go to school. 'It's really, really important.'

'Can I help you Mr?'

'Sugg.' Usually he would make some dad joke, along the lines of the names Sugg, Joe Sugg. He just didn't have it in him, at this moment in time he didn't think he would ever be able to laugh again.

'Ah you are Theo's dad, what do you need?' He shakes his head, it seems ironic that they recognise him as Theo's dad, usually he is recognised as Maddie's dad because she's always causing trouble.

'I don't know.' He's close to tears, and the woman's face changes, he can tell she's taken aback, a full-grown man in the reception about to cry, that isn't normal.

'Come into my office.' He obliges, 'What's happened?'

'Our elder daughter.' He stutters. 'Ruby.' She nods, seeming to know who Ruby is. 'She died.' He watches as shock falls upon his face. 'And the school has to know, for the other kids.'

'Ruby's dead?' She whispers, as Joe nods. He doesn't know how he isn't in tears. He wants to cry, he really wants to be able to. There's always something stopping him, maybe it's shock? Maybe when he has to go and identify her body, maybe it's because she thinks he's at uni still, they've gone longer than this without seeing her.

There is still the hope that she isn't gone, that someone took her ID and her phone, and she just can't call, that when he goes to see her it won't be her, she won't be the one under the white sheet. He would come out of that room and tell Dianne and the kids that it was all a misunderstanding and that it is someone else who is unlucky, it's someone else's ordeal to go through.

'Maddie has insisted on coming in today. I thought you needed to know.' She nods, as her heads fall into her hands. He knew that Ruby was well liked, she was a prefect, so she had spent a considerable amount of time with the senior leadership team, he just didn't expect this reaction.

'When?'

'Last Sunday.' She nods,

'I'm going to call a meeting.' She tells him. 'If you want to stay.' He nods, and before long a group of five staff members are in the cramped room. Of the two times he's been called in, they have been in a conference room. This office was older, and it smelt kind of musty.

'This is Mr Sugg.' She tells him, if he had the energy he would shake their hands. He doesn't have the energy to, managed to drag himself out of bed, that is an achievement. 'Thank you all for coming, I just wish it were under better circumstances.' She pauses, looking between the posse of senior leadership and the pastoral team. 'You may remember Mr Sugg's oldest daughter, Ruby.' They nod. 'She's died.'

Joe doesn't listen as they go on about support for their kids, but his ears are ringing with the words 'She's died.' It's not sunk in yet, he manages to leave the school without anything major happening. He doesn't know what Dianne is going to say. 

A/N Thought's?