Suddenly he wasn’t there. I was sitting in the little room, on my own, and I felt oddly better. I had cried and cried and cried. I’d cried for Mum, and Joe had cried for – well, for everything. It had to be shit to discover that you’d been dead for twenty years. We hadn’t been able to touch, but the fact that we’d both wanted to meant a lot. I often hugged Izzy and Sasha; it was a very long time since I’d wanted to get close to anyone else.

Crying felt good. I had tried so hard to stop doing it, but now I thought maybe I should let it happen a bit more. Catharsis. That was the word, wasn’t it? It meant when something big and emotional happened, and you felt better afterwards, even if it was horrible at the time. I’d met someone who understood me, and I loved Joe for that. I was the only person in all of space and time who could even see him properly: he needed my help.

I ran home, letting the sea air dry my face. I slowed down a bit to reply to text messages, trying to sound normal. At home I went straight to the list on the fridge, feeling more positive than I had for ages, though the absence of Mum hit me, as it always did, the moment I opened the front door.

‘Hey, Mum,’ I said to the empty air. I imagined her saying hello to me, kissing my cheek. I imagined her reaching out to touch me, and our arms passing through each other. I hoped she was there. She’d been gone for a year.

I checked the list. Today I was supposed to be cooking pasta. How hard could that be? It was literally the next easiest thing to getting a takeaway. I put the kettle on and checked the cupboard. There was a bag of twirly pasta. Perfect.

I got out a pan and thought about Joe. No one knew what had happened to him. I googled again until I had the names of his parents, Jasper and Claire Simpson, and then I turned my attention to them.

Were they still in town? That was the main thing. Was his dad here? Had his mum come back from India? Had she even been there in the first place? He seemed confused about his mother, but he knew she wasn’t living with them. I tried not to judge her for leaving, but … who was I kidding? If Joe’s mum had done the same as our dad, then I judged her exactly as harshly as I judged him, which was very harshly indeed.