I nodded. Everything hurt. ‘Yeah.’

‘It’s fine, Cait.’ He squeezed my waist, smiled. Genuine, like it really was. ‘You can meet Mum another time.’

‘I know.’ It was fine. As long as I was careful, everything would be fine. ‘I’ve just got a headache. The noise.’

He sat back, studied me. ‘Should we go?’

I looked around. Nic had stopped watching me and was deep in conversation with Tegan and Holly, and I wasn’t lying about the headache. The cocktail churned in my stomach and suddenly I felt completely exhausted.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

We walked back to his apartment in silence, our feet never quite finding the same rhythm, so his hand kept pulling mine in the wrong direction, or I was pulling him. At one point he let go completely, knotting his fingers together and looking down at them as he walked.

‘You know,’ he said, studying his palms. His voice was slow, deliberate. ‘If this is too much for you, or you need space or time or anything, you can just tell me.’

I stopped walking, or maybe he did. We both did. I looked at him. His eyes were down and he looked worried and I hated that I’d caused it. I wanted to tell him everything, but I also wanted to tell him it was fine, everything was fine.

I wanted everything to be fine.

‘I know you haven’t done all this before and it’s all been really intense and if you …’

I could just nod, I thought. I could just say he was right. But I felt a rush of fear, of what that might mean. I didn’t want it to slow down. I didn’t want space. I wanted him. Still. So much it made my eyes water.

‘No,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘No, I’m sorry. It’s okay.’

I wasn’t sure it was, but it was going to be. I was going to make it okay.

He looked at me. His eyes holding mine so entirely my breath caught. ‘Cait, I—’

‘What?’ I cut him off, too quickly. He frowned, surprised, opened his mouth as though he was about to go on, but didn’t. My stomach hurt. My chest. Pulmonary embolism. I didn’t even know what that was, except that it was fatal.

‘Nothing. It’s all good.’ He paused for a second, then took my hand, and we started walking again. He didn’t say anything else.