Thinking back now, it feels like a story I’ve made up or a dream that has fractured in the light, leaving only flickers of the facts.

He didn’t pull the trigger. That would have been too easy. Martin’s game was emotional torture, and he was good at it. But, that weekend, as Mum and I walked around and around the duck pond in a village near ours, crying and not caring who saw, she made a promise that we would escape. And she kept it.

It took a while, and it wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t an escape like you see in films. In the end, he watched as the removal men loaded our stuff into their van.

In our new home, I made a fort out of the boxes while Mum and the removal men drank tea round a temporary table.

A while later, Mum met Gary. But that part of our life feels distant, now.

I didn’t trust Jay to begin with, and I don’t think Mum did either. She wanted to. She said she did. But, when you’ve seen what she has, you’d be foolish not to be wary. She met Jay in a bar on a night out when she wasn’t looking. She was with friends, and he introduced himself. Whatever he said was enough to get her number. Over the next few years, she began to trust him in all the ways she’d never trusted Martin or Gary. It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t always easy. But he’s a good bloke. He’s a “keeper.” That’s why I believe Mum when she says how lucky we are. Because, if they were that easy to find, everyone would have one.

23

The four of us strip wallpaper with different degrees of enthusiasm. Jay and Mum are having the most fun, I lose interest once the ripping turns to scraping, and Nia would rather be anywhere else.

“We’ll do yours next,” Jay says, but Nia doesn’t answer. I know why my room is the first project. My stepdad thinks it’ll help us bond. He thinks we need this. I shouldn’t moan about a man in our life actually giving a shit, but, sometimes, I wish he wouldn’t try so hard.

It feels awkward and fake, because no one moves into a new house and thinks the first room that needs decorating belongs to the sixteen-year-old boy. That’s what posters are for. Except I’m not like Nia. I don’t like things the way she does. I don’t live things.

When she talks about her favorite music, or when she plays her own, my stepsister transforms. That’s why her room is already a collage of festival line-ups and flyers and photos of her and her best friends, Femi and Esther, at fifty different gigs.