There was glitter. And blood. At first I thought it was my blood and when I saw it I went cold, so cold I was drowning in ice, but it wasn’t mine. The windscreen had come apart and there was blood and the driver was impossibly still and it smelled like rusty nails. Hot and sour.

‘The driver was unlucky. I—’

I was fine. I had glass in my hair and when I moved my head it looked like glitter. I couldn’t lift my arm, but I didn’t say so, because I just wanted to go home. I wanted people to stop talking to me.

But I was fine. Lucky.

The baby seat had come loose and slammed into my shoulder, but I didn’t notice, didn’t even feel it, not until the next day.

‘I walked away.’ I looked down at my boots. I’d been wearing heels that night. Stupid shoes for walking. Stupid shoes for doing anything.

‘But ever since then …’ I blinked, and everything blurred. Tears again. ‘It’s all I can think about.’

The next day I couldn’t get out of bed. Everything hurt. The day after the bruise came up on my shoulder, down my arm, where the seatbelt had yanked me back. Helen, my flatmate, insisted I see a doctor. She drove me in her car and I sat in the passenger seat like a frightened rabbit, bracing for impact. The doctor said I was in shock and gave me some valium which I didn’t take because I was fine, and some painkillers for my shoulder. I took those—two with water every eight hours, and I slept and slept and slept, for I don’t know how long. All I could think about was dying, that I was supposed to be dead, I was supposed to be sitting where that baby seat was, I was supposed to have a tonne of metal and glass and moulded plastic impaled in my chest. All I could think about was that walk home. How quiet it had been, how easy it would have been for someone to snatch me, to pull me into their car. I looked at the painkillers and forgot how many I’d taken and wondered if they should have killed me too.

‘Cait …’ I saw his head shake, turn.

‘My flat smells like cat piss.’ I went on. ‘It always has. The windows don’t seal properly and the paint is peeling off the ceiling in sheets and it’s so noisy. Sometimes the trucks come so close I think they’re going to tear the walls off. And sometimes I want them to, because at least then I wouldn’t be lying there hating myself for not being able to sleep.’

He made a sound, achingly sad.