‘I need help, Lina.’ And I started to cry. Hard, heavy, thick sobs. ‘I have tried so hard and I can’t do this anymore. Please help me.’ Cried and cried and cried and cried, finally, and through heaving sobs I said it over and over again. ‘I need help.’

Lina picked me up, undressed me, put me in the shower. She was gentle when she touched me, like I frightened her, and I should have hated it, but I didn’t. I was too tired. When the hot water ran out she wrapped me in a towel and helped me get dressed. I was so weak, I realised. I’d cried forever but there had been hardly any tears. My body had nothing left.

I felt numb, exhausted, and something else. A strange sort of calm. I felt a thousand years old, like a decade had passed in just a few minutes and I couldn’t remember anything that had happened.

I felt lost, completely.

‘What day is it?’ I asked, as she helped me into my hoodie.

‘Tuesday.’ Like it was the most normal question in the world.

I bit my lip. I’d left Sawyer’s on Thursday. A hundred years ago. ‘How long have you—’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t ask.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Another shake. Stop. ‘Are you hungry?’

I shrugged. My stomach made a sound, wanting tangled with terror. ‘Thirsty. Yes. Maybe.’

She made me toast, brought me a glass of water, settled me on the floor with a pillow while she stripped my bed, rolled everything up in a sheet and cast it aside, like she’d done it a dozen times. Like she’d done all this a dozen times. I watched her face, set, bottom lip pulled under, perfectly still. Decades of practice.

‘How’s your mum?’ I asked while I chewed. The first mouthful went down hard, nearly came back up, but the second was easier. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten and my stomach hurt.

‘Huh?’ She touched the mattress and wrinkled her nose. ‘This needs airing.’

I chewed, waiting.

‘She’s okay,’ she said softly.

I hesitated. We never talked about this. ‘Did she ever try again? After …’

I expected her to flinch, or react, tell me to stop, but she didn’t. She just shook her head, as though I’d asked her if she liked olives. ‘I don’t think so. Meeting Colin helped. Mum never was much good at being on her own. And medication helped too. Bucketloads of medication.’

‘Does she still take it?’

‘As far as I know.’ She shrugged, thoughtful. ‘She always will, I think.’

She picked up a pillow, held it still, eyebrows pinched together like she was studying it.

‘She doesn’t talk about it much. Colin tells me. She’ll be good for months—years, sometimes—and then she’ll be less good for a while. But she’s better.’