It was driving me insane. I don’t know if it was drink-induced paranoia, but God, every time I’d even glance towards her I swore she was looking directly fucking at me.

And now the texts flashed in front of my eyes.

Doesn’t sound like you’re all that upset.

A switch flipped in my brain, a giant switch I’d been ignoring and that the alcohol had masked, but only for a bit, only for a bit.

Do you really think someone killed him?

I shouldered through the masses to make my way to her, and before I could stop myself I had her cornered up against a wall. ‘What are you playing at?’

‘What?’ she said, recoiling.

‘I’m so sick of –’ I made some sort of primal noise, with my teeth clenched together. ‘I’m so sick of whatever it is you think you’re doing. Just – why now? Why are you doing this now?’

‘I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Dyke.

‘Yeah, OK. Healing Homosexuality? Really? You know what? You – you can go fuck yourself. Can I just know why? Like, why you’ve suddenly decided now’s the time to get some weird revenge?’

‘Sydney, stop. I have no idea what this is, I –’

‘The texts.’

‘What texts?’

‘Please don’t lie.’

I didn’t mean to, but staring daggers at her made me see her as she was two years before, when I cared about her; I felt a pang of sympathy for the girl in front of me now. What was I doing?

‘I’m not.’

‘Then why have you been acting so weird? Since my dad –’

‘I’m so confused, Sydney.’

‘Why have you been acting weird?’

She sighed a big, full-bodied sigh. ‘I’ve felt so guilty.’

‘What?’

‘I’m – I’m so sorry. For what happened. Seeing you the way you were, it just – made me feel awful, so, so awful, and I didn’t know how to apologize. It just, like, hit me … and I wanted to come to the funeral but since I’d never made amends, I …’

‘So you’ve just felt guilty? You’ve been acting like a freak because you felt guilty?’

‘Yeah.’ We were quiet. ‘I’m so sorry for everything. I was gonna apologize but it never seemed like the right time, and I wanted to talk to you here … but what were you talking about? Is someone harassing you? I –’

I turned on my heel and left.

My compromised brain had no idea how to process any of this.

So it acknowledged the information, felt very, very angry, and then promptly threw it away.