When I opened my eyes she smiled and held the bottle out towards me. As I took it our hands lingered on the glass. I inched my finger up to graze hers and a flash of heat flared where our skin touched. She turned and danced away from me, and I had the strange sensation The Cliff House was sealing itself up, the locks turning, the windows gluing themselves to their frames, as if it was trying to keep me inside.

‘Make sure you drink,’ she said over the music, gesturing at the bottle and breaking me from my thoughts. ‘If you don’t it’ll sting like crazy.’

She sat down beside me and reached for the sewing kit. Using her fingers like tweezers she eased one of the needles out then unravelled some red cotton. She wound the thread around the tip of the needle leaving a couple of millimetres exposed. I leant back against the headboard and closed my eyes.

‘Drink more.’

I lifted the bottle and swallowed. The liquid didn’t burn anymore but slipped down bitter-smooth. My head floated higher as each pump of my heart forced the alcohol into my bloodstream. It was intoxicating to feel so distanced from my reality, protected by the house. Not just from Mum and Gareth bloody Spence and Granfer’s blood-specked handkerchief and my brother’s hopeless gloom, but also the grief which throbbed beneath my skin and the nightmares waiting in my sleep.

‘So what tattoo do you want?’

As I turned to look at her, my head swum. ‘A cross. Like yours.’

She rolled her eyes, but nodded. ‘Sure. It’s the easiest thing to do anyway.’

‘On your shoulder?’ She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s where mine is after all.’ She laughed.

‘Yes. Where yours is.’ Maybe it was the vodka or the music or just being in her company but I no longer cared about keeping the tattoo hidden. If Mum saw it, well, she’d just have to deal with it.

‘Take your top off then.’

I hesitated, recalling the agony of the last time she’d seen me in my underwear, dripping wet, caught trespassing, shivering with humiliation beneath her piercing gaze.

‘Seriously, you need to relax. I went to a girls’ boarding school. We hang out starkers all the time. It’s just skin. I mean, if you’re that worried, I can pull your collar down but the tattoo will look shit and you’ll get blood on your top.’

She spoke in that tone that made me feel like a kid who was wasting her time, so reluctantly I took a breath and unbuttoned my shirt. Heat spread over me like melting butter, but when I glanced at her she was studying the tip of the needle not me.