I raise my chin to look at her, but she won’t meet my gaze, and it makes me feel better for some reason, like she finally sees that I’m a person, not some stray Dev brought back to the bookshop. A person with a little sister who loves Will Parry and will have to fall asleep staring at my empty bed every night.

I turn away and put the book back on the pile on the bedside table, pressing my palm to it for a moment before turning away again. It only takes one step to walk to my side of the room. I suppose I should be embarrassed by the state of it, but I’m not. Perhaps if Esen was Poppy, I’d apologise for the pile of clothes I abandoned on the bed after trying everything on and before settling for the black jeans and hoodie I’m wearing, but I don’t care what Esen thinks.

God. Rosh is right, though. I am messy, aren’t I? I can’t help but smile as I think about the time she got a piece of masking tape and stuck it down the middle of the floor, warning me that anything that strayed on to her side of the room would end up in the bin. Not just our bin, but the big bins outside that smell foul and are too high to get stuff out of once they’ve gone in. I didn’t believe her and that’s how I lost my favourite Thrasher T-shirt.

That’s when I see the nail polish that I hastily applied before I left and look down at my feet to find the red dot on the toe of my DM and I ache again as I think about Poppy, her head on my shoulder as we looked out at the sea, the New Year rolling out from our feet like a red carpet.

When I look up again, I glance at the mirror over my chest of drawers and gasp.

‘What the fuck?’

‘What?’ Esen asks, then she’s next to me. My whole arm shakes as I bring it up to point at my reflection. ‘Oh.’ She nods, lifting her chin to meet my gaze in the mirror. ‘I guess you’ve transitioned.’

‘Transitioned?’