Alanna is quiet, eyes focused on the bedpan she’s rinsing out, eyelashes pointing downwards, milky gloves squidging against steel, scrubbing away the invisible bacteria. Am I supposed to say something? She hasn’t asked me a question. Anything I say now is tantamount to admitting I am keen on doing something I am not technically keen on doing. But the longer I am quiet, the deeper the notion sinks, like an oar in a puddle of murky water, dredging up detritus that I don’t particularly want to look at.

Winning at life, isn’t she? That’s what everyone will say. Alanna is getting married. I’m single now. It hurts. The implications: no plus-one, terrible hair, only ate her starter, look at the old maid, look at her dance. Who even is she? Have some wedding cake.

‘You can’t be serious.’ I try to make the question sound like a statement. I need to find a way to turn the invitation down and I need to do it quickly if I want to protect myself. Looking at her, so small and so pretty, you’d think she might need protection herself.

‘Of course I’m serious,’ she says. ‘Look, this isn’t the way you’re supposed to react, Ruth.’

I’ve had the wrong reaction pretty much every time anything notable has happened in my life: I’m never going to get this one right. But I haven’t said no, not yet. I take a deep breath.

Hypertrophic scars can appear while a serious burn is healing. The skin grows out too thickly, too fast, overcompensating for the damaged layers. It’s impossible to know in advance whether the scar will resolve itself, in months or even years, and leave a rosy section of neat child skin, or if it’ll stay dry, shiny and crumpled, like fresh papier mâché. You do everything you can to aid the healing process. You soak your cotton wool swab in disinfectant to clean around the surface of the burn daily. You wrap a compression bandage around it to keep it flat and then you do your best to forget that you are carrying an open wound on your body. You hope it doesn’t get infected, that there are no complications. I’ve been trying.

Even though I can’t help but drown in sleep. Even though I can’t think of eating without feeling terrible. As if by restoring full proficiency, surviving correctly at this moment in time, I run the risk of being pulled further away from the future I thought was awaiting me. In which I am the woman at the altar. Instead, I am an actual bridesmaid, as Alanna and I hurtle towards the fulfilment of our respective destinies. Me, forever on the sidelines. Alanna, right here, waiting for me to say something.

I realize I haven’t answered her.

She’s waiting.