This attention is freaking me out. The last thing I want is to be indoors after four days at that stuffy hospital, but we run up the steps to the stinky pre-fab that serves as the Sixth Form Common Room to escape the stares.

The temperature inside is colder than outside, but at least we’re out of sight. I empty the kettle of water that’s sat there since we broke up for Christmas, watch the beige flakes of limescale disappear down the plughole. Could it have been hard water that made Joel’s heart malfunction?

I can’t stop asking myself the same questions over and over again. Why did it happen to him? Why then? Why was I there? And the big one: did I get the CPR wrong? Is that why Joel is consumed by terrifying rages since he woke up – because I failed to get enough oxygen to his brain?

The answers aren’t clear; as the doctors keep saying, all we can do is wait and see.

I focus on spooning coffee granules into two mugs, pouring over boiling water, adding sugar.

As I hold out the coffees, the last drops of water in the kettle come back to the boil. The guttural sound is chillingly familiar. My heart pounds and I close my eyes as I realize what it’s like: Joel, lying on the grass, his mouth opening, gasping for breath, that same agonal gurgling . . .

I hear the mugs smashing before I register scalding coffee splashing against my legs.

‘Watch out, butterfingers!’ Tim calls, but it’s too late; the liquid has soaked through my tights, trapping the heat against my skin.

Despite the pain, I crouch down to pick up the shards of china.

‘Kerry, you’re hurt!’ He’s at the sink, filling the washing-up bowl with water. My shins prickle as blisters begin to form but I keep going.

‘For God’s sake, Kerry, stop doing that.’

I straighten up, holding the broken mugs in my coffee-sticky palms. Without warning, Tim tips the bowl towards me. A wave of icy water splashes over my knees, my legs, down into the new Doc Martens I got for Christmas.

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ My boots are flooded, but my scalds don’t hurt any less.

‘I . . .’ He blinks, as though he’s as mystified by his behaviour as I am. ‘It’s what you’re meant to do with burns. I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.’

It’s on the tip of my tongue: What, like you did on New Year’s Eve?

We stare at each other.

Should I tell him, finally, how dreadful it was for me? How alone I felt as I pushed and puffed and knew I had someone’s life, literally, in my hands. I want to ask him, too, why he’s taking equal credit for the resuscitation when it was almost all me.