‘Jhanvi, you cannot keep up with all of these brands and shoots if your stuff is lying all over the place! You need some order to this chaos or one of these people is going to tell another that you are unprofessional because you don’t do as you are asked.’ She held up the spoiled denim jacket with an I’m-not-even-going-to-ask look on her face.

Kavya did make sense, and she was right; this sudden growth had gotten the better of me far too quickly. She picked up my coffee cup and took a sniff, curling up her nose. Before she could ask, I told her it was some new natural energy drink I was trying for a company. She marched through to the kitchen, and I heard my newly poured drink being thrown down the sink. Standing up, I stretched and followed her to the kitchen. She was standing over the sink of dishes, shaking her head.

‘All right, I’m up. I’ll do the dishes if you can dry them and put them away.’ She nodded and moved aside so that I could pack the dirty dishes on the counter before filling the sink with hot water.

‘Jhanvi, is this about what happened at the music festival?’ She looked around the kitchen at the chaos and mess.

‘Nothing happened at the festival, Kavya.’ I rolled my eyes, trying to avoid a conversation I didn’t want to have.

‘I found you half naked in a stranger’s tent, covered in your own sick and with no recollection of what happened, Jhanvi.’ Her eyes seemed to burn right through me.

‘It was nothing, okay? I let loose, got a little out of control. Nothing bad happened—really. And I learned my lesson, Kavya. It will never happen again. Trust me.’ I gave her a light hug from behind, trying to avoid her gaze.

She finally nodded and turned back to the dishes. Once they were done, Kavya grabbed three empty boxes from the living room. She marked them ‘tried’, ‘to try’, and ‘donate’ with a capital K after donate, explaining that whatever I did not like was to be put in that box for her. We sorted through the piles of food, vouchers and treats, putting them in their relevant boxes. My head began to pound, and I could feel the slump of the energy drink wearing off. I headed to the kitchen to make coffee. Setting out two cups, I put in coffee and sugar. Putting the coffee back in the cupboard, I saw the bottle of vodka neatly tucked away behind my flour tin.

‘There’s a box of protein bars in my bedroom, do you think you could get them? Might as well get all the foodstuff in their place,’ I said while pouring hot water into the mugs. As soon as I heard her rummaging through the boxes in my bedroom, I reached for the vodka. Not measuring out how much I poured, I quickly replaced the lid and tucked it back in its usual spot. Being careful to remember whose mug was whose, I placed Kavya’s in its usual spot before joining her in the bedroom.