Back at his apartment, he kissed me, and I kissed him back, maybe a little too hard, strangely urgent, and we had strange, urgent sex, never quite finding the same rhythm. I’d feel his eyes on me, but when I looked at him he’d look away and everything felt too intense, too big. Words rattled around my head; big, small, short sentences, long stories, so many words I wanted to say but I couldn’t, and it took me a long, long time to fall asleep.

AUGUST, ONCE

AUGUST, ONCE

I kept hearing the sound. So loud but so—not loud. Like a tin can, crumpling; a beer bottle falling onto concrete; plastic, snapping. I kept hearing it, over and over again. Loud, but not loud enough. It should have been louder. I’d always imagined it would be louder.

‘You should get checked out,’ the officer said. He wasn’t looking at me and I wasn’t looking at him. We were both looking at the ambulance, the gurney being wheeled into the back. Too slowly, the paramedic’s lips pressed too tight, no sense of urgency.

I nodded. My neck hurt. ‘I will.’

‘I can take you up to RPA.’

I kept hearing the sound. The silence. The sound. The silence.

‘Do I have to?’

He frowned. ‘You can go tomorrow. But you should get checked out, just in case. I’ll drive you home instead, if you prefer.’

‘I’m not far,’ I said. Lied. ‘My boyfriend lives around the corner, I’m just going to go there.’ So easy.

‘We can call him, get him to come and get you.’

I shook my head. My hair sparkled at the edge of my vision. Pink, like fairy floss. Glittery. Where had the glitter come from? ‘It’s fine.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t like it, but I can’t force you.’ He handed me a card. ‘Give us a call on Monday. We’ll need a statement when you’re thinking a bit more clearly.’

‘I’m fine.’

I looked at the car. Bright red, a great big gaping crater in the side. I could see the baby seat through the space where the window used to be. Even from across the road in the dark I could see it was broken, bent, thrown across the car when the spot it was in disintegrated. That was my spot. The Caitlin seat. That was where I was supposed to be sitting. Statistically safest. I hadn’t even known that until Lina teased me about it. It probably wasn’t even true.

It wasn’t true now. It was a hole. An absence. A gap in the fabric, the metal, the plastic. My head was supposed to be where the missing window was, the twisted metal in line with my spine. I felt dizzy.