Standing up, she checked her bedside table—the one she’d got for her seventeenth birthday. Where was her phone? She walked over to a scratched-up desk, lifting books and scrunching up pieces of paper before racing over to the bed to lift the duvet, since she was known to sleep spooning her phone. Finally, she went to the power point where she charged her phone when she stayed over at Christmastime, where a smaller version of her current iPhone was plugged in. She clicked it to life and was surprised but also relieved to see the same very old photo of her and Ben’s faces squished together.

Holding the phone out in front of her, she caught a glimpse of her bright blue sleeve and gasped. She was wearing the vivid blue Avatar onesie pyjamas she’d bought years ago after she’d fallen in love with James Cameron’s ground-breaking film. She had worn this onesie to bed almost every day that year—much to Ben’s playful disdain—but she’d thought it had long since gone to the Oxfam shop on the local high street.

Positively frightened now, Evie flung open her bedroom door and took the stairs two at a time, heading towards the sound of voices in the kitchen. As she reached the bottom step, her dad yelled, ‘I’ve told you this a thousand times before!’

‘How am I meant to remember everything you say when you talk rubbish all day?’ her mother screamed back in her distinctive Australian accent, which hadn’t softened a bit after all these years.

‘That’s real nice, Anna,’ her dad said, opening and then slamming shut a series of kitchen cupboards.

Evie’s panic skyrocketed as she walked barefoot into the kitchen. Her parents had split up years ago, and since her dad moved out of the family home, Evie could count on one hand how many times he’d been back.

Peter was rifling through the cupboards, his jaw clenched. He looked alarmingly fresh-faced and youthful for first thing in the morning. He was moving about in that familiar way you do in your own domain. Evie’s mum Anna was sitting at the kitchen table, legs crossed, lips pursed, and her fingers wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. Her hair was in the high ponytail she’d often worn before she’d got it all chopped off after the divorce.

‘Evie, tell your father to please stop yelling,’ Anna said, taking a sip from her Best Mum Ever mug.

On the muted television behind Anna’s head, an old clip of David Cameron standing behind a lectern was playing, his face serious, his hands gesticulating in beat with his nods. It was strange to see him so animated after the Brexit mayhem. And what a contrast to Boris Johnson, with his crazy mop of blond hair.