I missed him with all my heart. I longed for him. But he’d told me he didn’t want to see me any more, and so I stayed away. I concentrated at school, only mildly distracted by the hints of ghosts. I did my work and joined lunchtime revision sessions. My mind cleared a bit and I could see the exams coming up, and felt that I hadn’t left it too late. If I revised really hard I could do it.

I applied to sixth-form college, for A levels in history, English and French. I didn’t think I’d have gone for French if it hadn’t been for Joe and Ms Duke, but I was working extra hard at it now because Ms D was the link between my life and Joe’s, and because Joe had never been to France, and because Troy lived there and I’d never managed to get in touch with him. Every strand led to France, so learning the language properly seemed like the least I could do, even if I had stopped trying to solve the mystery of Joe’s death.

I had never felt alone like this. I didn’t have Mum. Izzy was ecstatically loved up with Tally. When I went looking for Jack one day after school, I found him kissing a girl from the year below and backed away.

And I didn’t have Joe. I only went into his room when I knew he wasn’t there. A few times, between four and five, I stood outside clutching the door handle, but I didn’t go in. The more I didn’t do it, the easier it became. I supposed he was living by a schedule he had crafted for himself, making sure he saw all the important people in his world, apart from me. I went to an open evening at college, and I knew that he’d been right, that I was growing away from him, that one day I’d be just another adult, and he would still be fifteen.

At the end of April I was dutifully eating a nutritious breakfast (muesli with chopped banana, raisins and yogurt) while reading over my chemistry notes, and also keeping an eye on my phone, when Sasha laughed.

‘Look at this!’ she said. ‘New trick!’

She’d put her glass of juice on her bump as if it was a little table. She took her hand away and it wobbled, but stayed there.

‘Wow,’ I said, distracted for a moment from the email that I’d just seen in my inbox. ‘That’s amazing. A built-in shelf!’

‘Portable coffee table.’ She sighed. ‘I’d love a coffee so much. But since I decided to give it up, right back at the start when everything was making me sick, I can’t really go back to it now. I can manage nine more weeks without coffee.’

‘Nine weeks! Are you serious?’