And I wait until she’s out of my room and all the way back in hers before I dig my phone out from under my pillow.

Ten per cent battery remaining. I feel like I have the same. It should be enough to speak this time at least.

I download the Stream Cast app. Log in.

Welcome back to Stream Cast, Alice

Users online:

Users offline:

daddycool-007

Last online: 89 days

Connect to a channel to start watching.

Connecting to Rowan …

30

Rowan

And now I am watching as Rowan rolls socks with dinosaurs on them and puts them away in a rickety old drawer.

I clear my throat.

I scream.

Then try to pretend that I didn’t.

‘Al-Alice.’

I take a breath.

‘You’re back?

You’re okay?’

‘I’m back. I’m okay.’ I laugh nervously. ‘Hello.’

‘Hi.’

I’m pleased she can’t see the

thousand times

I’ve checked my phone in the last day.

‘Thanks for taking me back to the mermaid again yesterday. I’m sorry my … my sound wasn’t working.’

She was there, then.

And now my cardiac is over

I realize that she’s here, too.

In Jonah’s bedroom.

Watching me fold his washing.

He drops a pair of socks and I lean down to pick them up, before remembering that I’m a whole world away.

‘Um – hold on.’

I bend.

Pretend that my hoodie is accidentally covering the camera lens,

but keep my finger pressed over it.

I run into the hall –

close the door on Jonah, who’s watching TV in

Mam’s unused bed –

and into the living room.

Then I stand in the centre and spin.

Torn armchairs.

Cigarette-melted wallpaper.

Lego all over the carpet.

I turn to face the window.

I’m back up for air after swimming in a grey sea, and now I can see a dark window over a sideboard with a black-and-white chequered top, photo frames balanced on the squares like they’re in the middle of a game.

‘So the mermaid – yeah.

It’s one of my favourite places, that.

My mam used to take me there after school –’

‘Are we in your house?’

I’m looking for purple paint flecks, but I can’t see any. The wallpaper is an ink spill of yellows and golds, but not quite how I imagined it would be. I thought Rowan’s life would be like living in a painting come to life. But this? This could be my room.

Shit shit shit.

‘Yeah, listen –

you probably saw that I have to –

um –

B A B Y S I T

a lot.

My little brother, Jonah.

I’m kind of in the middle of that now, so …’

I try to see round him, out of the window. Outside there are street lights like yellow stars.