Once upon a time there was an adult and a child. They were a teacher and a pupil and for a while it was good. Then it was attacked and it ended with loose ends.

We're taught, and we know it, that the teacher pupil relationship can mean something. It's famous that it means something to the pupil, and it meant something to me. They all did, that group. The project was personal. 

I wanted to talk about it, to resolve it, but the people in charge said no. They said the children are being dicks, children can do that. I believed it was stressful for some of them, for the main one. I knew it.

Without talk to resolve it, it became loose ends, loose ends became a vine.

They both wanted it resolved, peacefully. To say goodbye well. I know it.

It didn’t stop for her, the outside world carried on, it was happening in the street up to a year later during lockdown spring. That autumn and winter, they wanted it resolved. To explain that it was a misunderstanding, mistakes, human error. I know it. To tell their side of the story. To be able to defend herself, just once. She had told work, they'd asked for a statement. It takes time and distance to understand what was happening sometimes. I think that autumn/winter it was a need to communicate and to end well that made me search and find. The need to right a wrong. Both of them felt that, I know it. For it to fuck off for both of them. And for the adult, the feeling that she, that they, had let down and hurt a child in their care. And now the child was expressing pain. I think you have to be an adult to understand that feeling. Not being able to help, being suffocated. It was the worst bit, worse that the experience at school. The adult wanted the child to be relieved of pain, to reach out, for the child to be looked after. For it to tell and get help from other adults. That's how they found a way, to say I cared about it, and I cared about you. It was a crazy situation but I don't think anyone went mad.

They both needed it to end. The child wanted her to fuck off. Both, shouted, for it all to just fuck off. It was proving sticky for me. I couldn't untangle so thought it best if he hated me, to kill any tangles for him. Only write on the internet what you're ok becoming front page news, that's what they say. Writing anything at all has not been protecting myself, I've known that the whole time. I wrote because I was trying to release pressure for him and offer him comfort. And then I was afraid, and I was angry to have arrived there. And I was trying to make it end for him. Later, again trying to make it end. The apology for the worst bit, the slip of the hand on my phone, that shocked me out of it.

I don't want to forget that a calm period happened, face-to-face, and it was always fine. Over weeks and weeks, months and months and it was good. He was a good mentee. He was open and interesting and good at it. Most of this whole thing, was that time. 

It wasn’t a good, bye. If I’d been a perfect person, I’ve have saved it at the time, and made it end well. But the end was too soon after. What I said was a joke and was misunderstood but it was unprofessional. It was my fault but I was still hurt and angry. It was an ending in a whirlpool of hell, in quicksand. The other adults told me that I was wrong, that it didn’t matter to anyone. But human relationships do matter. Communicating matters. Respecting us as emotional beings, matters. Especially with an accusation like that. It mattered for me. I think it will have been horrible for him. I said the thing that made everyone go nuts and not resolving it is on the adults. The kids played their part.  

He seems well. I’m glad. The worry that he wasn't fully back, still had its tendrils on me but seeing them recently has relieved it. This time I've seen but not heard. It's not my business. 

That's my statement, the wound that wouldn't heal and caring so much, that I didn’t understand at the time, was a need for that time to end. For there to be closure. To right any wrong that I had done and for it to have been a good goodbye. 

For the bye to be good, is clearly a long-time human need. It says so on the tin.

That’s life though right. Difficult things happen, so what. Give it the time it needs then get out of there.