‘Oh. Right. When Uncle Carl arrived to live with us, we had a lot of chats about it.’

Uncle Carl knew exactly how Vyvanse worked. He told Ben about the biochemistry of its interaction with brain function. Even though Ben now wondered how much was true, he fell under Uncle Carl’s spell. His uncle cared in ways that his parents were too busy for. And his uncle approved of Ben stopping taking it.

‘Which was what I wanted to hear,’ Ben said.

‘And yet you still didn’t say anything to us,’ Kelly said.

Ben pressed on. Uncle Carl, his self-appointed ‘counsellor’, told Ben that the lack of side-effects he’d suffered from coming off the Vyvanse confirmed that he was doing the right thing. He felt a little more tired in the afternoons, but that was how he was meant to feel. How normal people felt. If tired was normal, Ben wanted tired.

Then, Ben continued, Uncle Carl told him how beneficial Vyvanse could be for his health. He was getting off all sorts of harder and more life-threatening drugs, so a slow-release amphetamine ticked his boxes. It kept him alert and awake, and it improved his mood. Ben looked sheepishly at his mother, who was staring in disbelief at Carl.

‘Okay, okay,’ Gordon said, scowling in that way he had when he was trying to keep things straight in his head. ‘What next?’

Now Ben was really scared. There were two ways this could go. One would result in everyone being happy and together, and the other could result in violence and shouting and life changing course, maybe going even worse than it already was. All this, in his hands.

‘Just the truth,’ Gordon croaked.

‘Tell them,’ Carl said. The room fell silent. He folded his chapbook in half, like he wanted to break it, and slipped it into the pocket of his duffle coat.

Daniel said, ‘They won’t believe us until it comes from you.’

Ben swallowed.

‘You won’t tell Ms Oxenford?’ he said to his mother.

‘Irrelevant,’ Kelly said.

‘Just tell us,’ Gordon said.

‘I don’t want Daniel in more trouble,’ Ben said. ‘We need him for the final.’

His mother nodded. ‘Just tell us.’

‘Tell them!’ Daniel cried.

Ben took a breath and said, ‘Daniel never beat Carl up at school. That was something they staged because they were caught doing a deal. But Carl was never selling Vyvanse to kids. The kids were selling the drugs to him.’

‘You really are one fucked-up bunny,’ Kelly said to her brother.

‘Newsflash,’ Carl said bitterly and went to the balcony to smoke a cigarette.

‘And so I,’ Ben said, ‘I told Carl I’d be his dealer instead. It was easiest. Uncle Carl could get what he wanted, he didn’t have to go to Daniel anymore, and I … I could get what I wanted.’