You’re done.

I sat on the closed seat of the loo, my head leaning against the cool surface of the door. I was dizzy with distress, the anxiety so extreme I couldn’t even cry. I wanted to call Amber, but I was scared to. What could I say? I’m desperate to see you, but I’m so broke that I’m buying toilet roll with a credit card. Of course she was part of the reason for that, but I couldn’t ever say it. The fact she’d let me spend Christmas with her, had helped me so much, was such a privilege.

My phone seemed to taunt me. The person I most wanted to call – Sophie – would have all her worst assumptions confirmed by the state I was in. How could I call my ‘normal’ friends and tell them my mum had haunted me through the ages, plotting my destruction? Besides, they’d only suggest drinking through the trauma, and I couldn’t risk trying to socialize with only a Diet Coke to prop me up. I nearly called Hannah, but I’d told her I was okay, and there was no way that would be a five-minute call. I had to return to my desk before Duncan got back on the warpath.

I don’t know what twisted logic allowed me to think messaging Arthur was the answer, but I suppose that was my sickness. Ugh, I wrote, back to work and all I want is to be cocooned with all of you in deepest darkest Devon. Hope you’re having fun on the slopes! Oh, the painful, jaunty exclamation mark, a transparent stand in for a kiss. It made me cringe as soon as I’d sent it, along with the knowledge that I was now dangling from a noose of my own making until he replied. At least the fact that I had to get back to my desk meant I couldn’t simply sit there watching my phone, hating myself until he gave me cause not to.

Julia was staring determinedly at her monitor as I crossed the office, taking a second too long to look up as I slipped into my seat. At least I’d tucked in my shirt and slapped on a layer of tinted moisturizer.

‘How was Christmas?’ she asked, painfully cheerful.

I thought of Arthur, pressed down on top of me. The bulk of him. Addictive. Obliterating.

‘Eventful,’ I said. ‘I was away with friends.’

‘Right,’ she said, looking at me a little too hard. She clearly thought I’d spent a week caning drugs and drinking before crawling back to work on a monumental come-down. ‘You’re so glamorous, Rachel. Fred and I are just boring, middle-aged old farts compared to you, and we’re like, what, two years younger than you?’

It wasn’t even January. Another year of this stretched out in front of me like a life sentence.