She’s sleeping before her night shift, but I can’t resist getting into bed next to her; luckily, Mum is asleep too so I don’t have to make small talk with her first. The first time I had sex with Kerry, pure need overcame my reluctance to do it under my mother’s roof.

Now we share a room, but we’re well practised at making love in gleeful, conspiratorial silence.

Kerry turns towards me, kisses me with a toothpaste mouth.

‘How was it?’

‘Strange but uplifting.’ I run my hand down her naked back. Laura taught me many things and that paramedic boyfriend of Kerry’s did the same. For a long time in sixth form, I thought we were destined to be each other’s first lovers, but that might have been mortifying.

As it is, we are devastatingly compatible. Making Kerry come makes me feel more capable than anything else in my life. Correction: it is possibly the only time I feel capable.

‘You’re always horny after anatomy.’

She’s reciprocating, running her hand down my chest and further.

‘It’s the “carpe diem” thing.’

Her body is warm and her ribcage expands as she laughs. ‘It’s not life that you want me to seize, though, is it, Tim?’

This time last year, I wouldn’t have dared dream that Kerry Smith would be in my bed, that we’d be about to make love.

Do I deserve her? It’s not normal to keep secrets from the person you love. But the drugs are only temporary, till the exams are over. Or just into the start of next term, because already I am having sleepless nights at the thought of breathing, talking patients who might confirm my fear that I am not cut out for this.

STOP. NOW.

She kisses me again and I let the biological response overwhelm my thinking.

Chapter 22: Kerry

7 September 2002

‘Kerry, are you sure I can’t use these pesetas anymore?’

‘Kerry, what’s this funny thing on my tapas? I ordered scampi but it’s got tentacles.’ ‘Kerry, I can’t find my purse, do you think I’ve been robbed? Oh, shit, and my driving licence has gone too.’

I’m meant to be on holiday, the first since an all-inclusive family holiday to Greece, aged fourteen. Mostly that time I hid in my room to avoid being forced to conga or enter into some cringey talent show.

My sister’s ‘Barcelona or Bust’ hen weekend is a stretch for me financially, but Tim insisted I came and have as much fun as humanly possible. The trouble is, even though I’m the youngest here, I seem to have become the default parent.