I close my eyes and lean back into the dusty pink velvet cushions of my couch. I count to ten and then to twenty and then to one hundred. I breathe in and out and swallow down the nausea.

It happens at 6:33 p.m.

And by 7:26 p.m., I’m a shell of the person I used to be.

I still don’t cry.

Or allow myself to feel anything.

I’m hollow.

My intercom buzzes during Final Jeopardy. I barely have the energy to let them in. I drag myself off the couch to open the door.

Willa Loveridge is standing in the hall with a pizza box and a bag from Levain Bakery, which is the exact opposite of the vodka and carrot stick diet I adhere to. On any other Monday, I would have walked her straight to the garbage shoot to properly dispose of the carbs.

But today isn’t a normal Monday, so I step aside and let her in.

One

Freya Dunbar offers me her bag of salt and vinegar chips, but I decline as politely as someone who is jet lagged and has taste buds can—by forcing a smile and trying not to gag. It doesn’t help that the road conditions outside of Glasgow are bumpy. I spend more time bouncing out of my seat than sitting in it. I’m pretty sure Freya is making a game out of hitting every pothole. I stopped trying to keep score.

“So, like I was saying, he’s gone to Antarctica!” Freya throws her hands in the air and then catches the steering wheel in time to swerve the car into another pothole. “Of all the places he could choose to study, he picks bloody Antarctica!”

Right now, I’m regretting my choice to study abroad in London two years ago. Because had I never met Holly Dunbar, I wouldn’t be in the car with her deranged sister, who is one sip of Red Bull away from blasting off of this planet.

“Like, what am I meant to do? Woo him with my parka and snowshoes?”

“You could always woo him when he gets back,” I say.

“Leave him alone? On the arctic tundra? With Estée Lapointe? So, he can what? Use her giant boobs as earmuffs? I don’t think so! If anyone’s giant boobs are going to prevent him from getting frostbite, they’re going to be mine.”

There’s no use arguing with her. It’s been the same conversation since she picked me up at the airport forty minutes ago. Archie this. Archie that. Honestly, I’m not surprised he went to Antarctica. I’d flee the continent to get away from her too.

Which is ironic since I’m already fleeing one continent. And even though the world is big and vast and full of wonderfully warm places to explore, I pick Scotland. In January. Because no one will find me here.