Every step of the way, Mum had taught her how to survive in the world as it was, and Nic had shown her how to make the world as it was a bit more fun. Was that what all that bloody stuff was about? Trying to make things more fun? Was it just what happened when someone who thought like a kid made an adult wage? I’ll take this and this and this and this and one of those.

A social worker might be exactly what Nic needed. Help her face up to the way she’d been living. But also, it might be that the social worker would be like fucking Jules and would sit there and put on a syrupy, kind, sympathetic voice when the whole time the details of Nic’s humiliation are looping entertainingly through her mind. She would be saying, I only want to help, and thinking, Can’t wait to tell the girls at yoga about the disgusting mess this crazy bitch was living in.

Nic would say, Get the fuck out, no problem at all. But the thing is, the social worker wouldn’t have to get out, because the room was not Nic’s. And even if the social worker did get the fuck out, someone else would come and they, too, would talk in syrupy tones like Nic’s life was their business, her shame their problem to solve.

Lena had a break between twelve fifteen and one. She’d have to slip out of this lecture early. Slip out. Fat chance. Wherever you sat, an early escape drew jealous or judgemental eyes. And once they realised who it was … Their eyes were on her now, she felt them, searing through her closed lids. Her closed lids were giving them the opportunity. Practically a fucking invitation, leaning against the wall, her nasty body stretched out like that, so they could take a proper look.

Skinnier than she looks on screen

Can’t see her ugly scar at least

Needs to show her tits more, best thing about her

Get the fuck out. She opened her eyes, caught no one looking, felt them start up again, taking in her flat arse, the one that had her graded down to a 6, as she walked as normally as she could away from the building. Family emergency, she told herself, practising—as if anyone would ask. There’s no one else who could be there to handle it.

NIC

NIC

The social worker looks no older than Lena but is dressed like she’s on a filming break from Real Housewives of Sydney: skin-tight black jeans, open-toed leopard-print stilettos, a fuchsia singlet with leopard-print bra straps peeking out. Her black, arse-length hair is unnaturally straight and shiny, and her nails are, Nic has to admit, both edgy and immaculate: rounded tips, deep, true navy blue polish, satin-finish, not gloss. She tucks her own split and naked nails into her clenched palms.