We drive in silence for a few more minutes, now heading back towards our house, before he speaks again.

‘You’re in a lot of pain,’ he says. For a minute, I think he means emotional pain, about my dad, and I’m about to yell at him to mind his damn business, but then I realise he probably means the abdominal pain.

‘It still hurts, yes,’ I say.

‘That’s it. We’re going to the emergency room,’ he says.

‘No!’ I say.

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t! I don’t have anything on me.’

‘What do you need?’

‘Clothes! And, other stuff.’ I can’t think of exactly what I need right this second, but I know I can’t go to hospital like this, without a big bag of stuff, without a plan, without hours of consideration and a pro–con list, without my mum, my GP and a nurse on call all approving the decision.

‘Harper can bring you clothes if they want to keep you overnight.’

Oh god. Overnight in hospital. I am sweating.

‘I can’t just go to the emergency room. It’s for people who are bleeding and dying.’

‘It’s for people who are in need of urgent care. You might be bleeding internally. We don’t know.’

‘I’m not ready!’

‘It’s the emergency room. By its very nature, people who go there aren’t ready.’

I start making a list in my phone of all the things I will need at the hospital. My skin cleanser, my moisturiser, my good pyjamas, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, at least six pairs of clean, sensible, full-coverage underwear, a cosy cardigan, a blanket, a clean pillowcase, the book I’m reading, a back-up book, a second back-up book because who knows what kind of mood I’ll be in, my laptop, my laptop charger, a water bottle, snacks, my passport maybe, or even my birth certificate (I’m not sure why but I want the highest form of identification) a cute T-shirt and maybe headband in case I need to do a hospital-bed selfie with bad bed hair. Wait, do I even own a headband? Or know where my birth certificate is? I put question marks against these items on my list.

We get to the hospital and into the emergency department. I feel like a fraud walking in, but Jesse steers me up to the counter. He sits in the waiting room while someone takes my details, asks me questions about the pain, my periods, my history, if I could be pregnant. Am I sure, am I really, really sure, they’ll check for me anyway but am I sure? I answer as if my answers are getting graded. I would like an A+ on my emergency-room form, please.