If any of them had stormed off into the night, alone, I would have chased after them. I would have been worried they were upset, and worried they were unsafe. I would have noticed they didn’t have a jacket and would get cold. I would have cared! I always care.

No one came chasing after me. Not my sister, not my housemate, not even my ex who claims he still cares about me.

Not Jesse.

I walk back to the karaoke bar, and I have a new speech ready to go in my head.

You’re all selfish and you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

No, I need something less obvious. I can’t tell them to be ashamed of themselves, I need them to come to that conclusion on their own.

I storm into the room, head held high, ready to make at least two of them feel intensely guilty, but it’s empty. They’ve all gone.

Somehow this is more upsetting to me than if they’d carried on singing.

My jacket is gone too. Now I really do have to walk home, cold and alone.

I go as slow as possible, hoping they’ve gone home and found me missing and they’re worried as hell.

27

27

I open the front door of our house and there is music pounding, and shrieking, and Harper saying, ‘Let me just get some paper towel to wipe that up’ in a stressed tone. If Harper is stressed about a spill, I am worried about what my reaction might be. I could legitimately have a heart attack. I vow not to even look at it.

I walk down the hallway and into the lounge room, and I can see Lauren and Kendra jumping on the couch in time to the music, and Penny and Henry doing some kind of complicated dance that Penny is explaining they choreographed in their childhood as part of a family talent show. Tristan is lying on a beanbag, and Jesse is nowhere to be seen.

‘Brooke!’ Lauren screams. ‘You’re okay!’

‘We were so worried,’ Tristan says, taking a long drink of whatever is in his glass, leaning further back in his beanbag, kicking off his shoes.

‘Yes. You seem very concerned,’ I say.

‘We are! We were!’ Lauren says, breathless from jumping around.

‘Brooke, you’re okay, thank god,’ Harper says, appearing behind me with a roll of toilet paper that she starts tearing pieces from and dabbing on the carpet. She actually sounds sincere.

‘Not that anyone here actually cares,’ I say, because apparently I’m not quite ready to give up my moment to be dramatic.

‘Brooke, I swear to god, life is so much easier when you stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ Lauren yells from the couch.