She was in front of me, I could tell. I stared at the floor, tried to pretend she wasn’t there.

‘After last time. You promised, Caitlin.’

Breathing hard. I could smell her. Toothpaste. Clean.

‘Caitlin. Look at me, Cait.’ Trembling. ‘Look at me right now or I’ll leave and you will be all on your own.’

I shook my head, a rush of fear exploding behind my eyes.

‘Caitlin.’

‘Stop.’ I lifted my head, set my jaw. ‘Please. I’m fine. I’m okay.’

Her face was all I could see. Hard. Angry. Red. New tears on top of old, dried trails of salt. Spittle at the corners of her lips. Nose pink and swollen.

‘You’re okay?’ She laughed, bitter, cold. ‘Right. Good. I can go then. Because you need to know, Cait, I nearly didn’t come. I am so, so, so angry right now.’

‘Lina …’ I reached for her arm, and she jerked it away.

‘I wasn’t going to come. You should know that. But then I got scared.’ She deflated. ‘I got scared that you were …’

My chest broke.

‘I thought you’d …’ She looked past me. Her voice shrank. ‘That smell. God. It stinks here. It stinks like it did that day. That fucking smell and I thought this time …’

‘I would never—’ But I couldn’t say it.

‘Maybe not on purpose.’ She shook her head. ‘You promised you wouldn’t do this again.’ Her eyes came back to me, open so wide I could see the whites all the way around. Pupils like pinpricks. Furious. Exhausted. She was whispering but it was razor-sharp and awful. ‘You promised you would get help.’

‘I didn’t need help. It was just shock, after the accident. I was fine.’

‘You hardly got out of bed for weeks. You—’

‘Someone died, Lina.’ I shouted it, too big for the room. ‘Someone fucking died and he had a kid and a wife and now he’s dead and it is all my fault.’

I looked at her, right at her. She was still, stunned.

‘I did this,’ I said, looking at the piece of paper still in her hand. ‘I knew it was ours but I took it and I booked it anyway. And I wanted to tell you that night, I swore to myself I would, but I couldn’t, so I went home instead, and someone fucking died.’

‘Cait.’ She shook her head. ‘It was an accident.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘It was.’

She looked at the piece of paper again. ‘Is that why you didn’t go?’

‘No. I just …’ I couldn’t remember why I didn’t go. I got scared. The weeks went on and I got more and more scared.