Dad had come back the February before our eighteenth birthday with his tail between his legs, begging Mum for forgiveness. For the first month he had been there all the time, leaving only to go to work and coming home straight after, spending the weekends taking Mum away on elaborate breaks to seaside towns hours from home. Then he had started to take on some “extra work,” work that involved him being away on his own at the weekends. Of course, Leah and I knew the truth. His first wife had kicked him out and so he had come to Mum. But then Kath had begun to thaw and let him home, so he tried once again to balance things. Mum was blind and let him stay, although his visits were increasingly erratic for almost six months before he finally went back to Kath full time.

Mum had blamed Leah and me for him leaving. Blamed the shame of his daughters going out and taking drugs and being disrespectful. We had been grounded for a month and I had missed my freshers’ week at university.

Leah had always been more experimental, and I had always been the one to pick up the pieces of her life when the wheels finally came off. Although, that’s a rubbish analogy, because actually she never did total her car, despite her insistence that it was OK to drive as long as she could count the drinks she’d had. I was the one who had the crash, rolled the car in a ditch and had to be cut out by the fire brigade. Somehow though, I had escaped with only a faint scar, like silver thread, running just under the hairline at the back of my neck, which you’d only know about if I pointed it out in bright sunlight. And I never talk about it; it always feels like that would be tempting fate. Especially as I told the police at the scene, and the doctors, that I was Leah. It was her car I was driving; I had her wallet in my bag so I could use her debit card to buy cigarettes, and the lie rolled off my tongue before I could stop myself. I had failed my driving test the week before, but Leah wanted fags and convinced me it’d all be OK.

Despite having to act as the stupid one of the group, I’m actually enjoying book club. I’m not really one for big girlie gatherings and prefer to be part of a smaller group, but these women are a lot of fun. They also don’t seem to have noticed that I’m not taking my turn to puff on the vape, preferring instead to slowly succumb to the softening effect of a very expensive Sancerre. The wine is crisp and cool on my tongue with a hint of citrus and something almost akin to starfruit; it might have become my new favorite if it wasn’t almost thirty quid a bottle. I’m only having two glasses though. I can’t afford to let my guard down, even if these women don’t seem particularly observant.