‘Ciara, please,’ Marie said, her voice more urgent this time.

My grandparents were both staring into their drinks, trying to avoid the scene in front of them.

‘Oh, Mum, why are you always on his side? Do you think he’ll leave you if you aren’t nice to him? Oops! That’s right – he already did, didn’t he? For some slut he’d only known a couple of months.’

I heard my grandmother gasp. My face blazed.

‘And not only that, when she popped her clogs what, two years later, he stayed to raise her mad brat, too.’

‘Ciara! That is enough!’ Joe’s voice was stern, angry.

My grandmother was crying. Grandad was shaking his head.

‘Why? Why is it enough? Why is it always about her? Be kind to poor Heidi! She lost her mother. Be kind to Heidi, she’s going through a tough time. Be kind to Heidi, she’s not right in the head. She might hurt herself. Poor fucking Heidi.’

‘ENOUGH!’ Joe was shouting now.

Marie was crying. I was mortified.

‘No!’ Ciara shouted back. ‘It’s not enough. It’s not even nearly enough.’

‘Ciara,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Please. Why don’t we all just try to calm down and have a nice evening. Your dad has gone to so much effort.’

‘Well, that’s nice of him. To go to some effort, for once. And of course it would be for you. For your big homecoming.’

‘We’re all here,’ I said. ‘We’re all invited.’

She sniffed. ‘Oh, Heidi, you know nothing. You’ve never known anything. You’re so wrapped up in yourself. No one gives a damn about what the rest of us have been through. Why haven’t you just pissed off by now? You should’ve pissed off by now. God only knows, I told you often enough. All those messages I sent. You never took the hint, though, did you? How stupid are you?’

I stare at her, my eyes wide. I knew Ciara hated me. Of course I did. But to have sent all those messages. To have told me, repeatedly, to kill myself? She’d almost, almost pushed me to it. She’d messed me up just as much as her bastard father had done.

‘I think we’re done here for tonight,’ Joe said.

‘I’ll take this one home,’ Marie said, grabbing a reluctant Ciara. ‘How could you be so cruel?’ she hissed at her daughter.

‘Being cruel was bred into me,’ Ciara hissed back.

After everyone had gone home, when what was meant to be dinner was wrapped in tinfoil or decanted into the bin and Joe went to bed, I sat in the living room and stared at the tree I had decorated earlier. And I looked at the presents underneath.

Any sense of hope, or belief that the worst was over, left me. If Ciara wanted me to kill myself, I would. Or I’d at least make a big enough scene that everyone would know just how bad everything was.

I lifted the matches from the fireplace, struck one and watched it burn until it threatened to singe my skin. Then I threw it in the direction of the delicately wrapped notebook and all the other Christmas presents, and I watched until they caught fire one by one.