As I retraced my steps, checking, turning off lights, checking, I noticed the silver of your pen peeking from beneath the bed. I bent to retrieve it. It was heavier than I’d thought, solid. Felt expensive. You didn’t even know what you’d done with it. Were as careless as if it had been a Bic biro. So I dropped it into my bag too.

Funnily enough, I’m using it to write this. It’s lovely and smooth, though sometimes its weight makes it hard to grip and I have to shake back the circulation in my hand. Especially as it’s so cold in here.

Light grew through the crack as I slowly opened the door. Eventually I felt brave enough to check for life. All was clear.

The hallway seemed starker than usual. Or perhaps I felt more exposed. I hung over the dodgy handrail. Vertigo again. I was safe to go, so ran down the stairs, concentrating on not missing a step yet remaining focused on my escape. Not stopping until I was running, running, down the road.

You’re probably shocked.

Disgusted with me.

I don’t blame you. So was I, at first.

But by the time I was on the Tube, sat among the Normals, who probably hadn’t just committed a crime, the guilt evaporated.

I didn’t feel bad. More . . . exhilarated. Like when people skydive for the first time. Terrified, on the verge of tears, unable to take the leap until they’re pushed into the clouds. Then at the bottom, as they breathlessly gather themselves from the tangled silk and string, the first words that come from their mouths are ‘I want to do it again.’

I found myself …

I found myself willing the week to rush by. For Tuesday to be here once again.

Never wish your life away is what Mum would shout when we’d had one of our rows and I’d spit out my desperation to be eighteen, to get out of there, be free of her. In hindsight, it was an ironic thing for her to say. And when I woke the day after my eighteenth birthday, I got up, ate the stale crisps left over from our little party and continued my life exactly as before. It turned out I didn’t want to be free of her after all.

On the Thursday, you still hadn’t arrived by nine and I became worried that you’d called in sick with the flu and Linda hadn’t told me. But at ten past you rocked up, fit and well, pulling an eek face about Mrs Lloyd, who was waiting for you, then asking me for ‘one of those special northern teas’.