Growing up, people would say, ‘Your dad is fun’. And he was. But he was the kind of fun that gave me an aching jaw from holding my mouth tight. He was the kind of fun that made me not trust having fun. I have never relaxed around Dad. I didn’t actually realise that until I realised the clenching I feel about Lauren I first felt about Dad. Well, it’s not quite the same. With Dad, it was I don’t like who you are when you’re drinking, even though everyone else does. With Lauren, it’s more I am so tired of being scared of what might happen to you.

I need to be sober to make sure everyone else is safe. I need to feel in control. Being in control of myself is the most important factor to me feeling okay. If I don’t feel like me, true me, real me, then I feel out of sync with the world in a way that makes me feel like I might fall off the planet or stop breathing. I need to be grounded in my me-ness to exist, to keep going, to not get sucked into an am-I-good-enough-have-I-done-enough-will-Iever-be-enough anxiety tornado. Being drunk would be messy, dangerous, out of control. My worst self might come out.

9

9

It’s 2 am and Ruby, Justin and Sophie have just left, and I am finally alone, in my room. I’m still wearing the chicken onesie, because taking it off before the night was officially over seemed like admitting defeat—although keeping it on hasn’t exactly felt like a win.

Justin, predictably, asked me a lot of questions about not drinking, and I deflected by asking them how their short stories for class were going, which then triggered Sophie into a full spiral about her story (‘I read back over it and I realised, nothing happens. It’s about nothing. Nothing! There’s no climax, there’s no conflict, there’s no plot. It’s literally just people talking and a dream sequence!’), which has now triggered me into my own spiral about my story, because all of Sophie’s problems are my problems, and I’m torn between getting my laptop out right now to read over it or going to the kitchen to do a quick tidy first because I can’t sleep knowing there are empty bottles sitting around not in the recycling bin and I should double-check a drunk person didn’t turn on the oven, just for peace of mind.

I’m walking out of my bedroom when there is a bloodcurdling scream, and a crash, and Jesse and Amber emerge from his room, dishevelled and yelling incoherently.

Jesse is shirtless, something my brain eagerly notes. No. I refuse to acknowledge he is attractive, I refuse to acknowledge his body, even in the privacy of my own mind.