I explain about why I can’t eat Pop-Tarts, or go downstairs on my own, or go to birthday parties. And I explain how I could perhaps listen to a whole CD one day and not stand the sound of my own voice the next. And how it’s almost impossible to describe, because it doesn’t stick to one set of rules.

‘Will you get better?’ she whispers.

And my heart. Thumps. ‘I don’t know,’ I say.

And it’s the truth. Finally.

Cecelia holds me, tight. ‘So what can I do?’ she says. ‘Tell me and I’ll do it. I have a spare kidney, probably, although I did drink a LOT of beer on my birthday, hence the awkward screaming match with you.’

I laugh and I hold her back. ‘You can do this.’

‘Suffocate you with your duvet?’

‘No!’ I laugh and hold her hands. ‘You. Me. This. And tell me the truth – if things are bad at school. I’m here, too, you know.’

She doesn’t make a joke this time. She sees Me. And she’s here. And that. That is everything.

She sniffs. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that boy you sent to stalk me at lunch, by the way.’

I pull her into my chest and try not to smile too hard. ‘Shhh,’ I say. ‘You’re ruining the moment.’

58

Alice

I get a text later from Rowan.

Meet me tomorrow? x

I look at the kiss at the end of his message. It’s only a little letter and Cecelia puts lines of them at the end of her texts, but this one feels different. Like it’s leaped from my phone screen and stamped itself into my chest.

Obsessing over a kiss in a text message = 1 spoon

I keep typing my reply and then deleting it again. ‘Meet’ could just mean hop on to Stream Cast again, like I met him outside the Aquatic Centre. But it could also mean get dressed. Go downstairs. Walk and hold a conversation somewhere where the world roars.

I want to meet him. I want to see what he looks like when he says that he wants me. But that means telling him who that ‘me’ really is.

Someone who can’t go downstairs. Or walk somewhere. Or hold a conversation in a busy place. Would he still want me then?

After dinner, I’m watching a film with Mum when the light from the screen starts to halo. I ignore it and I ignore it, but then the pain starts. Right above my eye. I sigh loudly.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ I stuff my fingers into the pain and rub it hard enough that it might get the message.

‘Alice, that won’t help a migraine.’

‘I’ve kept well within my spoons today. I’ve not even left the bed. I don’t get this stupid …’