But the thing that’s whirring through my head, and making that oh-so-familiar pain jam like a knife into the bone above my right eye, is that I don’t talk to the streamers. Not to Wes–, not to any of them. I watch them Live their lives and pretend that I don’t even have a mouth to speak out of. That I have left the Illness. The need to count spoons. This bed.

I push my fingers into my forehead to try and stop the migraine. If I could only just think for a moment more, I might be able to get my head round it.

The brain fog descends and all my thoughts peel away. I reach out my fingers and try to catch the letters as my words

d i s a p p e a r.

Then – like a lighthouse through the mist –

‘All right, kiddo, just swallow this for me and you can rest, okay?’

Pill. It will stop the pain, but it will also stop Me.

Water.

Swallow.

‘The bucket’s here if you need it, right side of the bed.’

Beard kiss. Right where the pain is throbbing.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I whisper.

And I am not Alice. I am not the new streamer. I am not even Me.

I am a migraine.

12

Alice

Having a migraine = 12 spoons

I hate migraines. They come like knives in the night to strike you down, leaving oil-spill darkness and a full-up bucket by the side of the bed.

Even with the pill dulling the edges, migraines will take enough spoons for two or three days, so it’s all you can do just to stay awake and try to remember to eat and drink.

I’m starting to feel a bit more like Me again today, though, so when Mum calls up to say Cecelia has popped in for breakfast before school I don’t tell her she can’t come up.

‘What’s with all the salmon in your fridge?’ Cecelia asks, tumbling into the room with a Pop-Tart and doing a running jump on to the bed beside me.

She hugs me tight and I pat her arm. ‘Oh, you know – Dad.’

She offers me a bite of her Pop-Tart and I pull a face until she takes it away again.

‘Climbing was cancelled this morning, can you believe it? They didn’t even text anyone, so we all got up at six for absolutely no reason. Six! I tell you, Al, it’s a good job I have you across the street, or I’d still just be waiting outside school for the doors to open, like the rest of those losers. What are we watching?’