Heath hummed, like I had just confirmed something for him. But I didn’t think too much of it; I was focused on my heartbeat, which, instead of ba-dum, took on four new syllables: she’s been happy, she’s been happy, she’s been happy. And then the bit of drunken truth spilled from me: ‘She’s helped me a lot too.’

‘Good.’

‘I’m glad you said that, actually. I was worried I was sucking the life out of her, or something. Like, I don’t know. Like I was a bummer to be around?’

‘Well, maybe you’re just sucking the life out of each other.’

I laughed too hard; based on the stiffness of Heath’s lip, I wasn’t sure I should have laughed at all.

‘How have you been, though?’

I stiffened. ‘Yeah, I mean, I’m, uh, I’m fine, all things considered, I guess.’

‘Still watching those videos?’ he asked, the corners of his lips curling at the last word.

‘Not as much, no.’

‘I actually wanted to talk to you about those … texts that you’ve been getting.’

Oh God. Had he heard me and June talking? Maybe he’d followed us upstairs. How much had he heard? ‘How did you know about that?’

‘Oh, sorry. Olivia. She was talking about it in student council. She wanted to run some kind of bullying initiative, and mentioned … yeah.’

I slumped in my seat and clicked my phone dead, now bemoaning the fact that I’d left the party at all. Damn it, Olivia. Was it too late to ask him to turn round? ‘Oh. What about them?’

‘So … hm. So, sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about this right now, but, when my mom died …’ He seemed to choke on the word. Took a breath. ‘I felt so alone. It’s the main thing I remember from the time. Just feeling completely, utterly alone. It felt like people were looking at me, but not really, you know? Like they were looking through me, almost. Past me. And I would have done anything to get them to really, really look. Anything. To the point where I had some really dark thoughts. As in, maybe I wanted them to look at me even if I wasn’t around to know about it. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I guess. Sorry, maybe I – what does that have to do with –’

He sighed, like it was painful to say whatever he was thinking out loud. ‘Just that I understand if maybe the messages are … as in, maybe the attention …’

We were both quiet for a moment. Vivaldi’s second movement flourished to an anxiety-inducing climax. ‘You think I’m making it up?’

‘No! No. That’s not it. It wasn’t right for me to bring that up. Attention was not the right word. Ah. I can’t – I’m not articulating myself correctly. It wasn’t right to do this now.’