‘Guten Morgen, Piper,’ says Frau Fortunat when I walk into the classroom on Tuesday morning. There’s something about her voice that is so soothing, I find myself smiling. All the tables in the second row are free. No West. As much as I want to sit at the table closest to the window again, I choose the table on the opposite side of the room, far away from West’s table. A minute later, he walks into the classroom. Take the window table, take the window table, I chant in my head. But he doesn’t. He walks directly over to the table where I’m sitting.

‘Hey, cronut girl,’ he says, as he sits down.

I can’t help but blush.

I’ve never been the cronut girl, only the mute girl. This new label is surely a lot better but it’s not who I am. That’s when I decide that I have to tell him about my condition. He already has an idea and when he learns the whole truth, I’m sure he’ll go back to the window table.

Frau Fortunat starts the lesson, but I don’t really pay attention. I’ve no idea how to tell him. I could be conversational: you know how you’ve noticed I’m quiet, well, it’s more than that.

In the end, I go for the clinical definition and write:

I push my note across the desk until it’s in front of West, then quickly glue my eyes to the front of the room. I don’t want to watch his reaction. Even though I’m not looking, I can sense West is reading my note. A minute passes and then the note slides back onto my side of the table. I lower my eyes. Beneath what I’d written, it says:

I don’t understand. He’s not meant to be so accepting. He’s not meant to have his own issues. He’s a Royal. I’m still trying to process the meaning of his words when West reaches his arm over and writes something else on the paper.

‘Herr Kennedy,’ says Frau Fortunat, ‘can you please turn your attention to the front?’

‘Sorry, Miss,’ says West. I also want to say sorry but I can’t, so instead concentrate on what she’s written on the board, just after I grab the note and shove it into my German textbook.

Frau Fortunat introduces directional vocabulary then gives us each a map and asks us to write directions on how to get from the bakery to the train station. It takes me five minutes, but Frau Fortunat gives the class thirty.

‘Who would like to read theirs out?’ she says, finally stopping the class. Several hands in the front row go up. They take turns reading. None of their instructions are perfect but they would get you to the train station in the end.

Frau Fortunat turns her gaze to the second row. ‘Could we hear yours, Herr Kennedy?’

West looks as uncomfortable as I do when teachers call my name. He reads his instructions out. It’s painful to listen to. His pronunciation is wrong and his instructions actually make you end up at the library, which is nowhere near the train station. Frau Fortunat looks like she doesn’t know what to say. ‘Danke, West. Let’s have another look at that together afterwards.’

‘That was wrong, wasn’t it?’ he whispers to me.

I nod and give him a sympathetic smile.

We’re given a worksheet to take us to the end of the lesson. After Frau Fortunat comes over and helps West fix his directions, I position my sheet in a way that he can subtly look at my answers.

I wonder why he doesn’t sleep and realise I’m doing exactly what other people do when they learn I have SM.

I start packing up before the bell rings, so that the moment we’re dismissed I can make a run for it and avoid another awkward moment with West. I almost make it to the end of the hallway before I hear my name. ‘Piper, wait up!’ he calls.

I turn around slowly. He jogs over to me. ‘You’ve probably noticed that I suck at German and you’re this German genius. Do you think you could tutor me?’

I thought I’d heard all the stupid jokes before: you should join the school choir; you should find a support group to talk to; pipe up, Piper. But this is a new one. Maybe one of the Royals put him up to it. I look at West. There’s no amused smile on his face, no laughter in his eyes. He looks sincere.

I flick to the back of my German book and scribble a note.

‘I have,’ he says, when he finishes reading. ‘They say they don’t have time. I really need your help. If my grades in German are as bad as last year, I won’t get into law, and then my parents will kill me.’

‘I’ve tried that too but she was hopeless. She spoke so fast I couldn’t understand her and she had whiskers on her chin. I gave it a few weeks then stopped. My parents still think she comes over every Tuesday afternoon while they’re at work. They even leave money for the tutoring, so I use it to buy food and make dinner. They haven’t caught on yet. But they will if my grades don’t improve.’

My pen moves quickly as I write.

He looks at the note. ‘I don’t know. I had a proper tutor and still sucked so maybe I need a different approach. I’m not stupid. I’m at the top of all my other classes. I just can’t seem to pick up German.’

I look at him. A different approach would involve listening to podcasts or watching German films, but not asking a girl who doesn’t speak to tutor you.

‘Please, Piper. Just give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll stop.’

He sounds genuinely in need of help. But even if I could help him, which I don’t see how without speaking, spending time with West is a bad idea. I don’t ever want to end up in the same place as I was with Liam. When he kissed me, I thought it was because he liked me. It felt genuine but it wasn’t. I’m not going to trust another Royal. There has to be someone else who can help West.

He watches me as I write my answer.

‘Okay,’ West says with a nod. ‘I get it. See you around.’ Then he turns and walks away.