‘You should have fucking gone,’ she said, looking away, her voice gently angry. ‘I would have been jealous, because you were actually doing this amazingly fun thing and I was buying homewares. And I did want to go. One day. For a couple of weeks. A holiday. Just to see.’ She frowned, as though in disbelief. ‘I wanted you to go. You always wanted to go. More than I did.’

‘No, it was—’ But I couldn’t even say it anymore.

She read the booking confirmation one more time, then folded it up and put it on the floor. ‘I wish you’d just gone. I want to say I would have missed you but it’s not like you’ve been here anyway. Not really.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You promised, Cait.’ She hardened. ‘You promised you would get help.’

‘Leen—’

‘You were not fine. You lost your job. You got kicked out of your house. Maybe you don’t remember, but I do. I was there. I remember every single thing.’

I didn’t remember all of it. I took two pills every eight hours, and I slept. I was just tired. I was just cold and I was supposed to be dead. And then one day I woke up and she was there. On a chair, that time. Her hair had been different. Or maybe mine had been.

When did you cut your hair?

That was the first thing she said to me after the accident.

It looks terrible.

‘I got better.’

She laughed. Bitter. Sad. ‘No, you didn’t. Not really. You pretended to. You got a new job and a new flat and pretended it didn’t matter. And then Dex, and you—’

‘I got help, Leen, after that.’ I reached for her hand but she wouldn’t let me touch her. I wanted to tell her about group, about Donna and Geoff and Frannie … but maybe not Frannie. ‘I did.’

‘Not enough, obviously.’

‘I tried.’ So many times. Over and over. Every week. I was careful. ‘I got better.’

‘You pushed everyone away. When was the last time you saw anybody from before the accident? Your old work friends? People from uni? School? You know someone asked about you the other day, why you never come to anything anymore, and I didn’t know what to say. Your family. God. Your mum asks me all the fucking time …’ She hesitated. ‘Tom.’

I winced at the sound of his name.

‘Is that what happened?’

‘No,’ I said, firmly. ‘He would have left anyway.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I do.’ I didn’t want to talk about this, but she was wrong. He would have. He had. ‘Like Dex.’

‘You said yourself that he wasn’t like Dex.’

‘Still.’ Too much. ‘He would have.’