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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

Even if, technically, she’s twenty-five as of today.

‘She shoplifted it,’ Esen tells me, her dark eyebrows raised.

Dev ignores her. ‘I begged Deborah.’ Her eyes widen. ‘Begged.’

‘You look great.’

‘Thanks, Ash!’ she gushes, hugging me this time.

She steps back and looks between Poppy and I. ‘Thanks for coming, guys.’

‘Thanks for having us.’ Poppy smiles back, tugging off her bobble hat.

‘Sorry about the music. We,’ she stops to glare at Esen, ‘agreed that I’d pick a song and she’d pick a song, which is why it sounds like we’re at a tragic goth disco right now.’

‘Um, excuse you,’ Esen pipes up, clearly unamused. ‘The Cure are not tragic.’

I take it that’s what they were bickering about when we arrived.

‘Right?’ Poppy says, unwinding her yellow tartan scarf. ‘“Lullaby” is one of my favourite songs.’

Esen points at her as if to say, See? but Dev waves her hand at her. ‘I mean, it’s fine for lying on your bed, wallowing in the weight of your existential dread, but you can’t really dance to it, can you?’

Esen looks like she’s going to have a stroke so I change the subject.

‘Happy birthday, Dev.’

The music stops then, so she doesn’t respond, holding her hands up with an excited smile as she waits for her song choice to come on. There’s a beat of silence, then I hear the familiar ding ding ding ding of ‘Bad Girls’ by M.I.A. and she starts bouncing up and down, her white-blonde bob swinging back and forth.

‘Yes!’ Poppy hisses, ripping off her coat and throwing it on the kitchen counter with such force it snuffs two of the candles out. Dev, clearly grateful to find someone who wants to dance with her, takes Poppy’s hand and leads her into the middle of the living room.

‘OK. Bye, then,’ Esen calls after them, as we watch everyone shuffle out of the way to make room as they start singing along to M.I.A. and dancing gleefully.

‘Live fast. Die young,’ Esen says, shaking her head.

You couldn’t make it up.

‘Who lives here, by the way?’ I ask, looking around at the kitchen. Even in the candlelight, I can tell it’s too nice to be an abandoned house Dev is ‘borrowing’ for the night. There’s a pile of post on top of the microwave and a patchwork of postcards secured to the fridge by plastic fruit magnets. ‘I didn’t think reapers could have houses.’