‘Come on, Saff.’ Elle pouts. ‘Don’t be so boring!’ She reaches out for me, but I pull away. That’s when I see her roll her eyes. ‘Wow. OK. You know what? Ever since I started going out with Matty all you’ve done is moan. You never ask me about him, or how things are going . . . You’re just jealous that I have a boyfriend and you don’t.’

‘Why did you tell Abir and not me?’ I blurt.

‘What?’ Elle looks genuinely confused, so I explain how I saw them both whispering the day we walked to the bike shed.

Elle shrugs. ‘I suppose I thought she would understand a bit more. I was right.’

My heart pounds with every word of Elle’s. I feel sick, kind of like when you eat too many sweets. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I have been too negative about everything, thinking about us and our friendship instead of her. I feel guilty about being such a bad friend. After all, everyone else seems happy for her and Matty. Everyone but me.

‘Elle –’

‘Whatever,’ Elle mutters, purposefully turning away from me. ‘I’m tired anyway.’

‘I’m sor–’

‘Goodnight!’ Her voice rings across my room, bouncing off the walls in its false cheeriness. Then it floats down and settles on to us like a bitter smell I can’t quite get rid of.

I know not to push this with Elle. Not now. So I don’t.

Instead I turn the other way and think about Mum again, and how she’s trapped in that room alone. It’s like she’s some sort of fairy-tale princess. Like Rapunzel.

That’s when it hits me. Mum’s kind of like Sleeping Beauty in her tower, waiting for her prince to come and rescue her.

What if I’m the prince?

I realize now that I know how to win the game. I need to watch all the memories and unlock the door. And when the door opens . . . I’m going to save Mum. I’m going to wake her up.

But not just in the game, in the real world too.

Chapter 18

When I wake up the next morning Elle’s already gone.

I check my phone to see if she sent me any messages, but she hasn’t, so I decide to give her some space. I spend far too long thinking about what I said to her, trying to figure out where I went wrong. Did I sound bitter about Matty? Should I have asked more about the film he went to watch at the cinema?