Tears roll down my face. If I had a gun, I’d shoot myself. How could I be so careless, stealing from the only place that was keeping my life in any sort of order? I am now officially a bad person.

Mattie sacks me. He says he won’t report the theft, but he never wants to see me near the club again. It turns out he only checked the CCTV because Turner asked him to. She called in and wanted to see everything recorded from Saturday night, which is how she knew I left with Stephen Black. Shit, now she knows I stole the liquor as well. She won’t believe anything I tell her.

Brian is nowhere to be seen when I drag myself back out to the bar. And even Al, who I’m sure has some unsavory background stories of his own, isn’t there to see me off. Out in the parking lot I wave goodbye to the big old building and cry. What now, Becca Wall? What now?

Jeff is going to hate me, Danny is going to judge me, Dad is going to worry. Mom… well, at least Mom, stuck in her prison of bad genes and good medicine, won’t know a thing about it.

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘Not going out tonight?’ Ms. Cannister says, stepping out of the elevator, her red coat buttoned tightly around a velvet scarf. An explosion of perfume assaults my nose, forcing me to hold my breath for a few seconds while she moves past.

‘Later,’ I say, not wanting to admit that I have nowhere to go and no one to go with. She probably wants me to ask her where she is going, but I don’t want to discover that even the oldest woman in the building has a better social life than I do. Pressing the elevator button, I watch her walk towards the exit, her head held high, a lightness in her step.

Ignoring the door to my apartment, I go straight to Jeff’s. The sound of my knocking echoes through the corridor, begging. But I get no answer. Everything is still. It’s like the world has been put on pause and I’m walking through it, searching for my space. For where I’m supposed to be.