It had been his phrase of choice from age eight to eleven. Everything had been stupid until his grandmother had ended up nursing him through illness after illness, homeschooling him, doing her best not to let him slip behind his peers. He’d attended school whenever he was well enough, and she didn’t do a bad job except in French and the sciences – her weaker areas. With every illness, his immune system had eroded, slowly but surely, and Fergus had found himself lost in a sea of sadness. He’d been thirteen when the doctors first labelled it depression. Then there had been periods away from his grandmother’s house, although they were vague and shadowy in his memory. Hospitals, only not exactly.

His grandmother had had few regrets when she finally passed. She’d wanted to see her grandson happy, naturally. She’d been a mother to him when his own had passed. No father. That was all anyone had told him, and he’d learned not to ask given the sulking it always caused.

Without her, he’d fallen into depression. If he’d had a surviving sibling, he often thought, it would have been different. Someone there to share the burden of grief. As it was, he’d stopped eating, shrunk into a reclusive home life, and found that without his grandmother’s no-nonsense approach to vitamins, minerals and a strictly balanced diet, his body had begun to wage war on him.

At first his doctor had been falsely cheerful and given nothing other than common-sense advice. Try to get out more. It was amazing what the benefits of fresh air and exercise could do. Find someone to talk to, if not a friend then there were plenty of free groups around that provided support and counselling during periods of grief. He’d been asked about his personal relationships and stress. About his sex life and even, to his shame, about his masturbation habits. It had taken a whole year before anyone had taken him seriously, and by then there was the inevitable slow crawl towards blood tests and urine samples.

Two years in, and you could see every rib and every bony joint. He began missing increasingly lengthy periods from his work at the factory. Fergus’ boss was making unpleasant noises about him becoming a liability. Eating had become a chore, often ending in a sudden, explosive vomiting session. As hard as he tried to replicate his grandmother’s care routine, he was failing to thrive. Then came the news that his liver and stomach were suffering. The doctors had tried to tell him that it was nothing serious, but he’d seen and felt the truth. Finally, the tests had become more meaningful. There had been cameras inserted and scans taken. After that the doctors’ voices had lowered in volume and softened in tone.