Having been told by people since Dad died that they knew how I felt, it was weird to be in a room of other kids who actually did know. Well, at least partly. I wasn’t convinced anyone felt the exact same way I did. That’s the rub about being human, I guess. You have all these tools to express yourself, art and music and poetry and stuff, but no one will ever truly know how you feel unless you somehow manage to create a projection of your brain and play it on to the wall. Even then it might not be as vivid. Even then it might not be as close.

But here we all were, popcorning in and out of our seats, some desperate dance to convince ourselves that yes, there were others and yes, they understood. Even if they didn’t.

The game started with statements like, ‘I prefer hamburgers over hot dogs’, but the statements slowly got more and more real, and – I’m not kidding you – Leo and I moved on the exact same ones. Every single time. To the point where I thought maybe he was just doing it to get a rise out of me, but I looked at him and I could tell by the furrow in his brow that he was thinking the same thing. Everyone who plays video games. Everyone who likes horror movies. Obviously, none of the things were particularly uncommon. Then it became: everyone who struggles to talk about feelings. Everyone who feels it’s difficult to talk to your parents. Everyone who thinks life is unfair.

By the end of it, I couldn’t help but laugh. I looked at him from the opposite end of the circle, really looked at him, and his lower eyelids twitched the slightest bit – enough to let me know he thought the same. I think that was when we made peace.

And that was it, pretty much. Painless, if slightly infantilizing. Only seven more to go, I thought as Gerry gave us all a handout titled Physical Effects of Grief.

‘Sometimes our bodies can react to our emotional state in ways we’re not expecting,’ she explained. She went down the list. All your standard fare. Loss of pleasure. Decreased energy, motivation, initiative. Weight loss. Hypersexuality.

I shifted in my seat. It felt like everyone was looking at me even though none of them actually were.

Gerry gave us two more handouts but then it was eight o’clock, and she said it was time to go, and to my complete and utter surprise, something about the energy in the room shifted, crackled, and on the way out, Leo spoke.

‘I like your shirt,’ he said after five excruciatingly long seconds of me pretending I didn’t notice he was staring.