“I want you to come back with a list of the nice things Alec does for you between now and the next session, including times you felt he listened.”

They both made noises of acquiescence.

She told them about the pamphlets outside they could feel free to take, then said she’d see them in two days’ time.

A minute later, they were ejected into the fluorescent light of a hallway, Cora feeling slightly stunned.

“That went well,” Alec said.

Cora felt like she had said about five sentences. But she nodded. “It did.”

His words, you can’t do this to me, ran around and around her head.

“I’ll see you at home.”

“Okay.”

And he turned, disappearing down the hallway.

Someone walked past her. “Sorry.”

They didn’t even look up.

Everything in her felt out of sorts, like parts had been pulled forcefully out of her, then jammed back in all wrong. Breathing felt like something she had to think about doing and, somehow, she wasn’t doing it right. The wall on her left was lined with pamphlets, glossy covers mixed in with cheaper paper ones. She plucked a few out, not really thinking, taking ones that hinted at topics about marriage and overcoming differences. Walking down the hallway, she flicked through the few she’d grabbed. The last one, solid in her hand but its weight nothing, made her blink. She hadn’t even realised she’d taken it.

Emotional Abuse: Signs

Swallowing heavily, she shoved it in her bag, as deep down as it could go.

* * *

By two o’clock, Frazer’s hangover was better, and she just wanted to sleep.

What business did her drunk brain have sending Cora a message at three a.m.?

The entire day, Tia had been catching her eye and smirking. When Frazer caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, it became pretty clear why: she looked pale, and her eyes were a creepy shade of red with black smudges underneath.

Hangovers could die in the fiery pits of hell where they belonged for all she cared.

And the weird lightning outside needed to stop happening. Frazer loved storms, but the strange light show was off-putting, and she was not enjoying it. The clouds were a heavy purple colour, sitting low over the harbour. They were the same colour as the clouds last year when she’d gone to Japan for her first and only attempt at skiing. After falling face first down the baby slopes too many times to count, she’d settled for sitting in various bars and restaurants. She was more of an après skier anyway, and the view alone made it worthwhile: huge mountains, snow everywhere, and that incredible stillness that happened right before the heavens dumped a load of snow. Clouds never went that colour in Perth.