The bridge between us is so fragile. I resist the urge to wrap my arms around him: I don’t want to get bitten. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to love things the right way,’ I say. ‘They don’t always want to be loved the way we want to love them.’

He scowls. ‘I don’t know how to do it right. I try but then it always seems to go wrong.’

My heart aches for him. I can feel him wrestling with his rage as we sit side by side on the bed in silence, his frustration a tangible presence in the room. I’m impotent either to help him or to take his burden from him.

At the hospital I’ve watched mothers sitting next to their children’s beds, their baby’s pain etched on their own faces. I’ve known they’d do anything to take it away: they’d cut off their own arm if they could reduce their child’s suffering by even a fraction. But I had no idea what it felt like until now.

‘Am I a monster?’ Peter asks, his tone oddly incurious.

‘What? No!’

‘Meddie said I was. She said I’m a freak.’

‘Meddie’s your sister. It’s just what sisters say.’

‘You’re lucky you don’t have a sister,’ Peter says.

Gracie running towards me, her arms outstretched. Gracie asleep in the bunk bed below mine, her thumb in her mouth, fair hair streaming like a silk flag across her pillow.

Gracie cold and white and still.

‘You’re not a monster,’ I say again. ‘You don’t feel things the same way other people do, that’s all. It’s not your fault, any more than it’d be your fault if you’d been born with one leg or diabetes. You just have to learn to manage it. As if you had a prosthetic leg or an insulin pump.’

‘Why?’ Peter asks. ‘Why do I have to be like everyone else?’

‘Because otherwise the world will punish you,’ I say.

Downstairs, Tom is calling me. I don’t want to break this rare moment of accord with my son, but I hear Tom’s tread on the stairs.

‘Stacey’s not your friend,’ Peter says, as I get up. ‘She’s mine.’

I might have to have a tactful word with Stacey next time I see her: Peter’s crush is getting out of hand. I don’t want him to feel rejected when she gets tired of humouring him.

If she ever returns my calls, of course. It’s been two days now, and I still haven’t heard back from her. Although she has got a lot on her plate.

Peter catches at my hand. ‘She’s not your friend,’ he says again.

He doesn’t sound angry or possessive: it’s almost like he’s warning me.

I shiver, as if someone’s walked over my grave.

chapter 46

millie