‘Where’s your mum, then?’

I swallow.

‘She’s, um –’

It would be so easy to lie to her

like I lie to everyone else.

‘She’s not here.’

I close my eyes.

(What am I doing?)

‘She’s never here, actually.

She left. About a year ago.’

A car goes by the window and the lights flicker over the photo frames.

And I see a baby being held between a man with a beard and a woman with rosy cheeks.

A toddler, with thick dark hair, finger-painted every colour under the sun.

A kid’s drawing of a boy and his mum – holding hands and jumping into a swirling universe.

Gone – left.

‘Oh …’ I whisper, my heart sinking. ‘And your dad? He –’

I think of all those missed calls.

‘He walked out ages ago.’

Rowan shifts his arm and I see the rest of the photos on the window sill. And – just like with the pictures in my parents’ living room – the photos of Rowan’s life are cut short by another: a boy with bright yellow hair.

It feels like my lungs are leaking air.

‘You look after him, don’t you?’

My breath catches.

Just one word.

Just one.

And yet it could

b r e a k

everything.

(I shouldn’t tell her. I shouldn’t.)

‘Yes.’

I see it now, I see it. His brother. His brother is stopping him from Living.

Just like I’m stopping my parents.

I press myself against the wall, waiting for

– the knock on the door

– the sympathetic looks

– the ‘we’ll take it from here’.

I got this, though. I got this.

My breathing’s going funny.

‘You could be a great artist, you know,’ I blurt.

Huh?

‘What does that

have to do with anything?’

I’m losing my grip on my thoughts. My chest feels … wrong.

‘I just mean – you could be something special. You could –’

‘Alice – what …?’

I told her.

I ripped myself open.

Showed her the broken pieces inside.

And I don’t think she’s looking.

My thoughts fog.

‘Don’t let looking after him stop you.’

Something inside me –

something old –

snaps.

I take the phone out of the holder.

‘No.

You don’t get to say that, Alice.

You don’t know –’

‘I know,’ I say.

I feel it like a thousand tonnes of water pressing on my bones.

And it feels like sinking.

There’s a

C R A S H

from Mam’s bedroom

and Jonah starts crying.

‘I don’t need this.

Go and find your own life, Alice.’

Rowan is no longer streaming.

31

Alice

I come off the stream and something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.