‘Are you all right, darl?’ Pat asked, moving around her register to peer at Elle’s face. Her ash-blonde hair, streaked with grey, was pulled back in her usual ponytail, and the creases near her eyes were more pronounced with her concern. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

A manic laugh tumbled out of Elle’s mouth before she clamped a hand across it in alarm.

‘I think you should take yourself off home,’ Pat said, nodding firmly. ‘I’ll call up to Trudie and let her know.’

‘No!’ Elle said quickly. The last thing she needed was for them to put her off a few weeks earlier. She needed the next three weeks to find another job before her parents found out. ‘I’m fine. Just having one of those days.’ She tried for a smile and figured by the doubtful look on Pat’s face that she hadn’t pulled it off. ‘Really, Pat,’ she added, grateful for her friend’s concern. ‘I’ll be okay.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Pat said, reluctantly heading back to her checkout as a customer came towards them.

Just concentrate on getting through today, Elle told herself firmly, but it wasn’t easy. She needed a job, pronto … and possibly an appointment with a psychologist.

Elle stopped at the bottom pub to visit Lilly on her way home. It wasn’t a normal stop-over, but she really didn’t feel up to being alone in Gran’s big old house by herself, and the pub seemed the best alternative.

The place was full of its usual clientele of regulars, who had their favourite seats, and thirsty after-work labourers. Music played on a jukebox, a Cold Chisel classic, and loud male conversation rose in competition with the song.

‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ Lilly asked as Elle approached the bar.

Lilly had been her best friend since kindergarten, much to Caroline and Alister’s dismay. Lilly was another example of the ‘bad life choices’ her parents used occasionally in arguments—pregnant at nineteen and now raising a five-year-old daughter on her own in Jessup’s Creek.

Lilly was as small-town as it got—a single mum who worked as a barmaid in the local pub and had a sideline business selling healing crystals and jewellery. Fashion-wise, Lilly had a bohemian love-child kind of thing going on and managed to pull it off perfectly. Her curly blonde hair never looked like the frizzy disaster that Elle’s did most days. In fact, it was their hair that had drawn them together as kids in primary school. Elle had been cornered in the playground by Felicity Graham and her pack of mean-girl friends one lunchtime, who were making fun of her wild red hair.