I hit reply and my fingers hover over the empty text box. It’s great, I type and then delete it. I can’t lie to her but how can I admit that I’ve made such a huge mistake? I know she’ll try to help. I know she’ll tell me to come back to London and sleep on her sofa, and she’ll offer to help me find another job and probably get someone from the law firm to draft a letter to Scottish Pine Properties demanding my money returned because the pictures were inaccurate, and that would be great, but how much of a failure can one person be? I made this mistake, I should be the one to fix it.

More tears blur my eyes as I sit there staring at the screen of my phone, hating myself because I don’t know what to say to my best friend. Chelsea and I text each other all day, even when we’re in work and aren’t supposed to have our phones on us. Thinking of something to say to her has never been a problem before.

I push the phone onto the dashboard and cry harder. I know she’s going to ring in a minute because I haven’t answered, but I’m crying so much that I can’t even see the screen to type now.

I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt before. I just want my mum. What would she tell me to do? What would she and Dad do in this situation? I already know the answer. Mum would’ve found a mop and bucket and started cleaning the house and Dad would’ve gone out for a good look around to assess how bad things actually were before panicking about it. Mum would’ve whipped out a gigantic bar of chocolate and somehow produced a cup of tea, and promised that things would look better in the morning.

I don’t know how long I sit there having a good cry. I miss them, and I don’t allow myself to miss them very often, because I inevitably end up as a snot-drenched wreck, but none of this would’ve happened without their accident, their money, and their love of Christmas and the real Christmas tree that stood proudly in front of our living room window every December. I let the grief consume me in a way I haven’t for many months now. In front of Chelsea and Lewis, Steve, work colleagues, and acquaintances who were friends once but have barely spoken to me for the past two years because they don’t know what to say, I pretend I’m fine. The last time I sobbed in my own flat, a neighbour banged on the door and yelled at me to keep it down.