Dad smiles and pats the side of my bed, but she doesn’t come closer. ‘Ah, just the old spoon wobble. We’ve not had one in – what is it, Al – two months? New record, I think.’ He bends down close to me, still smiling. ‘We’re going the right way, eh?’

Please stop talking, Dad. Please.

Cecelia lifts her chin. ‘Spoon wobble?’

‘Yeah, you know,’ Dad says, not understanding my eyes. ‘She did a bit too much, that’s all. My fault really – I took her downstairs. Sophia told me it was too much, but it’s bat season. Have you got any round yours?’

‘Downstairs is too much?’ she says, her voice croaking now.

And Dad swings round to look at her like she’s made a joke. ‘Where have you been?’

She’s been here. Here, with me. Bringing the outside world in for one beautiful moment and leaving before she got to see what life on the inside is really like. Hearing my lies about tae kwon do and gaming and exploring cities – all the things I told her I did, but only ever really watched.

She looks afraid.

Tell her it’s not contagious, Dad.

Tell her that I’m still the same Me, trapped in here.

Tell her that I’m sorry.

Dad feeds me another mouthful. But it’s a bit too much and I choke.

By the time I’ve stopped coughing and look back to the door – she’s gone.

35

Alice

I’m back.

Perhaps not entirely, but enough to climb into the bath and wash the Illness from my skin. Enough to feed myself. Enough to feel the gap that Cecelia has left since she’s been gone.

I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your party!
Had the worst flu – bet I looked like
death when you saw me.

I spend a long time trying to get the perfect balance of light and breezy and lies. But I can’t have done a very good job, because she doesn’t reply.

Why don’t you pop round after school
later? I have your birthday present!

Nothing. Nothing.

I don’t text her again, because this is how it went before, with the others. They came round with their parents and visited me. And we had so much fun, playing games on my computer and watching videos on their phones. But then they’d invite me somewhere and I’d say no. And no. And no. And soon they stopped inviting me. Then they stopped visiting altogether.

But Cecelia never did that. She kept coming and letting me steal moments with her and it was everything. And I thought that if I hid the Illness from her, and lied about what I could do, then she wouldn’t leave like the others did.