She’s just not getting it.

‘Alice,’ I sigh.

‘Just – you don’t understand, okay?

You’ve got –’

I wave my hand at the

people huddled on the bench.

Careers lady. The bloke she called Dad.

‘My dad walked out.

The shit with Mam got too hard and he

chose himself.

Over her. Over me. Over Jonah.

And Mam –’

I spit the thought from my head

like an abscess.

‘– she’d hold her own kid

off the side of a bell tower.’

My breath gutters and I try to concentrate on how solid the floor feels under my hand.

‘Have you told your dad that things got worse?’

I shake my head.

‘He doesn’t care.

No one cares about kids like us, Alice.’

I look up. To the sky.

‘I care.’

‘I fucked it up,’ I whisper.

‘I thought I could protect him, but

I’m just as bad as Dad.’

He’s not listening to me. And I don’t know how many words I have left.

‘If you told him – your dad – if you told him the truth, he could help you. And Fran. Charlie. My mum. If you told them, they could help.’

I failed.

I failed.

I failed.

He pinches his eyes and I see the same worry lines on his face that I see on mine in the mirror, always hiding what we are. What we’re really feeling. Always pretending that we’re stronger than we are, when sometimes – sometimes – we perhaps aren’t.

And it’s okay, isn’t it? It’s okay to show someone that you’re disappearing. Especially if that helps them find their own lines.

‘Rowan. Rowan – I’m not … I’m not well.’

I rub my face.

‘Ask your parents to help you, Alice.’

And the fog finally catches up. It licks my toes like flames.

‘I do.’ I gasp. ‘Not with words, but I ask them. I ask them to – to get me out of bed in the morning. I ask them to feed me. Worry for me. Keep me from falling over in the middle of my bedroom and pick me up whenever I do.’

I turn back.

‘What are you –?’

But then I see her.

See her in a way that feels like

waking up.

Alice.

Her twig-thin arms.

Her ghost-white face.

Her eyes leaking light.

But still somehow smiling.

‘What – Alice?’

The fog swirls higher and the light dips lower and Rowan reaches out and grabs me. Grabs me by the hand.

And our skin. Our skin together. Him and me. Both. It’s one of many impossible things a girl who is bound but boundless can have.

I look at his eyes. Dark marbles.

I can’t clutch his hand back, but I focus on how it feels to have him

reach out through the world between us

and hold me.

‘I’m ill, Rowan,’ I whisper.