‘There’s people that rap, play metal, all kinds of cool stuff,’ I told them through the laughter. ‘Who knows, I might be going to school with the next Kanye.’

‘There’s only one Kanye and he doesn’t live on the Fleurieu Peninsula,’ Jane said and took a gulp of her wine.

‘Hey Pheebs, would you like a drink?’ Katie asked, reaching for the bottle of wine.

After Caroline’s party, I didn’t want to drink alcohol again anytime soon. ‘Soft drink is fine. My head is still messed up from the concussion,’ I said as an excuse.

‘Yeah right, I forgot about that,’ she said before going inside to get me a glass of lemonade.

We sat around chatting for most of the night and before Katie’s parents came home, everyone stashed the alcohol and went inside to the family room to put on a movie.

I looked outside to the lights shining from the pool, thinking how pretty they looked, and then I must’ve fallen asleep. I was dreaming that I was laid out again on the basketball court with all of my team trying to wake me when I heard someone saying ‘Phoebe, Phoebe,’ as they shook me by the shoulder.

‘What is it?’ I sat up and looked around me, realising that I was in Katie’s family room when I saw all of the bodies scattered around on couches and mattresses.

Katie’s mum was there, looking at me all concerned. ‘It’s your mum,’ she said.

‘Is she okay?!’ I asked in panic, thinking that she’d been in an accident.

‘She’s outside. She’s drunk Phoebe, really drunk. I recognised her walking along the street and picked her up on the way home,’ Katie’s mum told me. As she sat next to me, I got a better view outside and could see Mum sitting by the pool, slumped over the table.

I groaned. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s three. I’ll give you a few minutes with her, and then we need to get her some help. Try to find out what happened, she’s not telling me anything.’

I looked around the room again at my sleeping friends, relieved that they weren’t awake to witness the scene. I wanted to die.

I grabbed the rug that Katie must have thrown over me and went outside to confront Mum.

‘My god,’ I said, seeing her face. Her lip was all busted up and bloody, and there was a bowl of bloody cotton wool buds on the table. Katie’s mum must have tried to clean her up.

‘What happened?’ I asked, throwing the blanket over Mum’s shoulders.

‘It was just an accident,’ she slurred, her eyes rolling back in her head.

‘Who did this? Was it that sleazebag Simon?’

‘Don’t you speak about him like that, he’s my boyfriend,’ she said, raising her voice. I thought they’d broken up?