We channel-hop our way through the evening. I don’t want to use the money Nick left us for a takeaway, so Becca digs a pizza out of the freezer. We leave it in the oven too long; it tastes like ashy cardboard. She drinks one of Nick’s beers and the smell makes me feel like he’s in the room.

Why hasn’t Mum rung to say they’ve got there okay? Did she promise she would? I can’t remember now. Everything’s muddled. I search the kitchen for the address of the B and B they’re staying at. Where did Mum say she would leave it? I wish I’d concentrated. I was just so intent on stopping them going.

“I can’t find the address,” I say, banging drawers open and shut. “I don’t even know where they’ve gone!”

“Kate, you’re exhausted.” Becca pulls me away from the drawer I’m riffling through, closing it gently. “You should go to bed. I’ll find the address.”

She’s right. I’m so tired. I sleepwalk through my bedtime routine, but when I wriggle under the covers my brain refuses to rest. I’m having a feverish conversation with Mum inside my head, telling her to get far away from him, begging her to come home.

Becca comes into the room not long after, smelling of the almond oil she slicks through her hair every night to keep it glossy. The dark room fills with shuffling noises as she adjusts her sleeping bag. Her breathing smooths out almost instantly, and I wonder if she’s really as anxious as me, or if she’s just been enjoying the drama. As the night crawls on, my waking worries and half-asleep nightmares smear together: I see Nick standing over my bed; I hear a violent argument in the next room, can’t move any part of my body to stop it.

And Becca sleeps. I’m just beginning to get really worked up, convinced that her deep, dreamy snores are some kind of betrayal, when I hear her voice: “Kate? Kate?” A sound of covers being thrown back, floorboards creaking, and then I feel her climbing into bed beside me, warm arms squeezing me close. That’s when I realize I’ve woken her with my sobs, and she’s wiping tears from my face, kissing my cheek. I cuddle against her like I used to with Mum in those early mornings, just the two of us, and I realize it’s not Becca I’m mad at, it’s myself and it’s Nick and it’s Mum and it’s everything.

—

I don’t know what time it is when I next wake. There’s milky light at the windows and Becca is still beside me, our limbs tangled together, her almond-scented hair tickling my nose. It takes me a few moments to realize that the phone is ringing from the hall.