‘All I’m hearing is pressure.’ Her red-tipped fingers popped into the empty space around her face. ‘You’re back there, on stage again. All of them wanting you to be well. Wanting you to be happy. Sometimes trying to live up to other people’s expectations can be the loneliest place on earth.’

I couldn’t accept her compassion, not yet. ‘I was a disgrace.’ My hands clenched into involuntary fists. ‘Why do I keep doing it to myself, when I know—?’

Amber gently cut across me.

‘All I’m hearing is what you did wrong. You’re judge and jury all at once – it’s pretty impressive. I’m feeling like there are a few co-defendants here.’ She held my gaze in that unnerving, intimate way she had, tapping a finger. ‘Firstly, Guy,’ she said, voice dripping with contempt. ‘He’s the one in a relationship, not you. He’s the one committing adultery. And by the way, he’s not someone’s husband, but I’m noticing that you found a way to make your crime – if we can even call it that – sound even worse than it is.’

It’s a weird kind of irony, the way she sketched out a courtroom. Perhaps she sensed where we were headed, even then.

‘You do that a lot, don’t you, Rachel?’ she continued. ‘Find petrol to throw on the fire of your self-disgust?’

I flinched.

‘I’m sorry!’ she said. ‘I work so intuitively, and sometimes I articulate what I’m sensing a little too quickly. Feel free to tell me to shut my mouth.’

‘No, no, it’s okay,’ I said, forcing myself to smile. What hurt was that my carefully concealed acts of self-harm were so obvious.

Amber continued, soft. ‘Sometimes, when we do something we can’t even explain to ourselves, it’s another part of us trying to express a truth we can’t bear to consciously own.’

‘Yeah, no, I understand about the subconscious,’ I said, shame making me pompous.

Amber paused.

‘But we can never really understand the subconscious, can we?’ She laughed. ‘It’s kind of its survival strategy! It can be scary when a part of us goes rogue, finds a more extreme way to force us to acknowledge the reality of a situation.’

‘So, Saturday was a terrorist attack, is that what you’re saying? I’m like – emotional ISIS?’

When Amber laughed, it felt like the most incredible release of tension.

‘Perhaps it wasn’t just you who needed to hear the message,’ she said. ‘It can be the truth-teller in the family who’s the real hero, even if it doesn’t look that way.’

‘Do you think that’s what I was trying to do? Make my family listen?’

How was she so perceptive when I hadn’t even spoken Esther’s name? I sat with her version for a second, and my shame started to miraculously recede, to reshape itself into something almost noble.