‘Hurrah! That’s everyone.’ The woman from before sat down, a notebook in hand, and took a breath, eyeing the lot of us. We all focused on her so as not to have to pretend any more that we weren’t trying to sneak glances of each other. Leo appeared to only be interested in the ceiling tiles. ‘Thank you all for being here, firstly. I met with all of you individually – except you, Sydney – but just to refresh your memory, I’m Gerry.’

Leo wouldn’t stop jiggling his leg up and down.

‘So, this first session is focused mainly on breaking the ice. Don’t worry, we’re not gonna do anything crazy. My philosophy is that, you know, no one is going to get anything out of this experience unless we feel comfortable with each other and free to share. I know, I know, at first glance this stuff might seem boring, but personally, I cannot think of anything more exciting than meeting fellow members of the human race.’ Gerry spoke with her hands, these smooth, fluid movements that were maybe too over the top in normal conversation but here, they were almost hypnotic. She had us introduce ourselves – name, age, who croaked and how, and something she called ‘availability’, on a scale of one to ten. How ‘here’ we were. How willing we were to participate.

The siblings started. Their older brother had overdosed. Jacob confidently rated himself a ‘ten’ in here-ness; Nora, seemingly unsure what to do with herself, refused to speak at all. Jacob mumbled an apology, and draped an arm round her shoulder. ‘She’s a little nervous,’ he said.

The girl with the box braids, Jasmine, laughed nervously when she gave herself an ‘eight’; her grandma had died because she was old.

Then it was me. ‘I’m, uh, Sydney. I’m seventeen. My dad died in a car accident last September.’ It occurred to me that I was the only one who’d said the month, then felt like a freak. I sensed Leo glancing at me, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of looking back, because I was pretty sure I hated him, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t really here at all, I was in the car, I was swerving, smashing, stopping, but I lied to remove the attention from myself. ‘And … seven, I guess.’ Negative seven, I thought.

‘Leo. Seventeen. Rather not say about the rest.’ Gerry said that was fine, but then asked him how here he was, and he said, ‘I’m far, far away.’

Wow. That’s really cool, man.

Come on, I wanted to say. We’re all trying our best. Just say who crossed the fucking rainbow bridge.

We spent most of the hour playing a game creatively titled ‘Move’, where Gerry would give a statement and if it was true for us we’d have to get up and go to an empty chair.