It was a mistake. I should have just stayed home, told Nic I was sick and paid the price, let him fire me, as though that would make a difference when I drowned in my bathtub. And I was sick. More than sick. Dying.

I was sluggish, slow, my rhythm off. I left the vodka out of a martini; put three shots in another; sent the wrong hundred-dollar bottle of wine to a table, uncorked, wasted; opened all my beers too fast so they erupted onto my hands and my shirt and the floor; smashed a glass just trying to put it on the bar, the sound ripping through my spine. So many mistakes. I’d never made so many mistakes, and whenever I looked up Nic was watching me with his lips pressed together, an expression on his face I didn’t understand. My hands were shaking so hard, my head pounding. I couldn’t speak, and when I tried my throat throbbed and protested.

I’m sick. I know I am. Why can’t they find it?

‘You all right, Cait?’ Holly asked in the staffroom after lunch. I was trying to roll a cigarette but I couldn’t steady my hands. ‘Where did you run off to last night?’

I blinked, not knowing how to answer.

‘Hey,’ she said, reaching out and putting her hand on my forearm. So cold it burned, dry ice, and I flinched, tobacco spilling everywhere. ‘Are you okay?’

I shook my head, eyes hot. Everything hot.

‘Here.’ She reached into Nic’s locker, handed me one of his cigarettes. I took it, tapped the end with my index finger. Over and over. ‘I’ve never seen Nic like that.’

Over and over.

‘He was freaking out. Thank God you answered the phone when you did or he would have sent an ambulance to your flat.’

‘I just fell asleep.’

I’m so tired.

She looked at me. That same look. I couldn’t stand it. Touched my arm again, rubbed. Cold. Bruising.

My mum’s sick.

Is she going to die?

I’d swear we were switched at birth. You and Mum, honestly.

‘You’ll be okay, Caitie. You will.’

I didn’t believe her, didn’t see how she could possibly be right, but I nodded anyway, turned away from her, out of the room. ‘Thanks.’

‘Nona.’

I hated his voice. Raspy. Grating. I just wanted to smoke my cigarette and now this. I hated it all so much. I closed my eyes. ‘Jesus, please—not now, Dex.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, staring at the ground. Concrete. Hard. Lethal. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

I heard him take a drag, heard the paper crackle. It was so quiet. I didn’t know when it had got so quiet. ‘So quit.’

‘No, not …’ Not this. Everything.

‘You’ll get over it.’

I laughed. Nearly laughed. A flash of anger burning in my gut. ‘And how would you know that?’