A warm summer rain splattered against the train’s windows, regulating her shallow breaths. She concentrated on it hard. Drip, drip, drip.

It was already spitting when they woke up the morning after the midnight swim – late at ten o’clock. Sarah’s mother had been ‘up and at ’em’ for hours, and Eliza, wrapped theatrically in a blanket at the breakfast table, had long finished her cereal, the remnants clinging like shrivelled leaves to the side of the bowl. She lifted her eyes from her book when the two of them slunk sleepily in and begrudgingly said ‘morning’ when Veronica greeted her.

“What are you going to do today, Eliza?” Veronica asked, but at this extended interruption, Eliza rolled her eyes.

“Not go swimming,” she answered.

“Not do anything probably,” Sarah goaded.

“Get me a drink,” Eliza said, as Sarah opened the door to the fridge.

“Get it yourself.”

Eliza rolled her eyes again. “You’re right there. You’re such a little brat.”

“You’re such a bitch.”

“Ugh,” Eliza sighed with exaggerated condescension.

“Oh, that’s an excellent use of the vernacular.”

Eliza stood up, flicking her beautiful dark hair over her shoulder and picking up her book. “I’m having an ‘evening-in’ on Saturday,” she announced. “There’s gonna be ten of us, including the boys. So can you make plans to not be here, brat?”

“Like I really want to spend time with you anyway,” Sarah called as Eliza swept out of the room. But her throat was gripped by a tight, constricting sensation, somewhere between rage and heartbreak. She and Eliza had always shared parties. Secrets. Lives. “She’s such a bitch,” Sarah said to Veronica.

“I know. She thinks she’s amazing. She’s not even that stunning. What a bitch.”

Suddenly, Sarah rounded on her friend, her pulse loud in her throat. “Don’t say that about my sister.”

Heavily, Veronica put down her juice, but she didn’t respond.

Aware of her hypocrisy, Sarah too said nothing more.

Quietly, they poured their cereal and sat staring out at the rain, the steady rhythm of water on pane ticking minutes away. Veronica moved the letter-shaped cereal flakes around her bowl.

Finally, after enough minutes had passed for the tension to ease, Sarah casually asked, “What shall we do today? Shall we try to get my mum to take us bowling or something?”

But they both already knew where they would spend their day. They had known it even before the rain had excluded outdoor things. And before Eliza had quashed the morning’s sense of triumph and conspiracy. Veronica tapped her spoon meaningfully on her bowl. On the side of it she had collected three letters: T C R.