Except that now, she didn’t. She didn’t have Bobby. Bobby was gone, and she was alone, on her fourteenth birthday, and someone was at the door, and it frightened her.

The doorbell kept ringing.

Something huge then swelled inside of her. She thought it might have been anger, but she couldn't be sure, because nothing she felt made any real sense to her anymore. The fear burst, like a bubble. She flung aside her duvet, struggled into a shirt, and stomped downstairs, putting the full force of her weight into each step. How dare this person come to her house, and make such a racket? How dare they? Why was everything so bloody unfair?

She slowed as she reached the bottom, and looked to the front door. She could see a dim shadow behind the frosted glass, dark, and tall. Too tall and broad to be a woman. She hesitated. She could see a pile of bills and other letters sitting on the doormat. The postman had already been, that day. Whoever this was, it was not the postman. But it was a man, a big, tall man, in dark clothing.

Laura’s anger melted away. She was alone in the house, and her best friend had been taken from her by another such man, a big man like this, a faceless mystery man. She held her breath, not wishing the person to know she was there after all. Suspicion had become part of her natural chemistry. Every stranger was the bogeyman. There was danger, now, around every corner.

Too late, Laura realised with a sudden, sick jolt that the man could probably still see her standing there in the hall through the frosted glass, every bit as well as she could see him standing out there in the porch. Despite this, she remained motionless, rooted to the spot, waiting.

The doorbell rang once more, and she flinched, but kept her distance.

Then, slowly, her letterbox opened.

She thought with horror that she would see an eye, rheumy and frantic, staring into her house through the small slit in the door. Or a hand, fingernails dirty and broken and bloodstained, reaching for her. She saw neither. Instead, a thin, yellowish envelope slid through and landed onto the mat with a soft noise. She did see the tips of thick, red fingers for a brief flash. Then the flap snapped down. Moments later, the dark shadow straightened, then moved away from the glass.

She waited a further fifteen minutes, breathing hard, tingling from head to toe, until she was sure she was safe. Then, she moved forward, bent down carefully, and picked up the letter as if she were picking up a dirty rag, holding it away from her body, pinched tight between her thumb and forefinger.

The envelope was handwritten. No postage stamp. Definitely not the postman, if she’d been in any doubt. The postman didn't deliver mail without postage stamps.

It was addressed to her, one word written in a strongly slanted hand, the ink pressed hard into the soft, dirty ochre of the envelope, an intimate word. The most intimate.