‘This your nanna?’ April asks, picking up the framed photo on Will’s bedside table. It’s a picture from two years ago, Nain and Will on a day trip to London, on the steps of the Tate Modern.

What sort of seventeen-year-old has a picture of his nan by his bed? Will thinks. ‘That’s her, yeah.’

‘She looks great. Nice clothes, cool hair. Hope I look like that when I’m her age. How’s she doing, Will?’

‘OK. No change.’ He feels a stab of guilt that he’s been so occupied these past twenty-four hours that he’s forgotten to allow his worries about her to dominate his thoughts as they usually do when she’s been hospitalized. Nonetheless, he’s been texting his mum every couple of hours, so he knows the situation hasn’t worsened.

April gently repositions the photo. ‘What’s wrong with her, Will, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Parkinson’s. She’s a fighter, though.’

‘I’m sure. She’s lucky to have you, though. Bet she knows it, too.’

Will smiles. For a moment, this feels a tiny bit less like two worlds colliding. Will starts to scoot around the floor, gathering up clothes and socks and pants.

‘Chill, Will! My room’s much messier than this.’

He tosses the bundle on to his mattress and wraps it in his duvet, scanning under the bed for any crumpled tissues that might have escaped his morning tidy-up.

‘So cool,’ she says, moving from his oversubscribed bookcase, studying the walls now and stroking her fingers on the glass fragments of Nain’s mosaic. ‘Your dog, yeah? Beppo?’

Will’s discomfort returns full force. Has Danny told her about Beppo? What an arsehole.

‘It is Beppo, right?’ she asks. ‘Isn’t that what it says on the lead? The little silver disc?’

‘Yes! His lead, yes!’

‘Is he not here?’

‘He’s out the back,’ Will says, a statement that’s not entirely untrue.

She drops her school bag on to his bed. ‘I’ve never been in a boy’s room where there are posters of books on the walls,’ she says, smiling as she reads and rereads the quote from The Catcher in the Rye.

It’s so weird to Will, hearing her in this room, the place where so much of his time is given over to thinking about her. This is the window he looks at the night sky from and wonders where she is, and if perhaps she’s looking at it too. This is the bed where he greets sleep with a certain relish, knowing he might get lucky and dream about her. There are the old records, so many of their lyrics finding new meaning in these recent weeks. And now she’s here. Her voice is in here. Her smell is in here.

‘Fuck!’ April says, making Will jump. ‘I didn’t know you had these! This is bloody perfect!’

‘The decks?’