‘Huh. Well. Nothing big. My stepmum, Bree, she likes things done a certain way. That’s fine. I get it. She’s got a house of six people to manage. But whenever I do something that annoys her, she gets Dad to come and tell me what I’ve done wrong. I stacked the dishwasher the wrong way, I was too noisy when I came home and I woke the baby—you get the picture. And Dad gets stressed by Bree getting stressed, so he yells at me, and I yell back, and we’re stuck in this stupid loop of arguing about things that don’t really matter. I just wish he would be on my side, just once, you know?’

‘Have you ever told him that?’ I say. My pain is impeding me from talking much.

‘Nah. He’s not really receptive to parenting advice,’ Jesse says, and laughs. ‘Anyway, it’s fine now I don’t live there anymore. They can just forget I exist.’

‘They haven’t forgotten you exist,’ I say.

Jesse looks at me. ‘Has your dad? Forgotten you exist?’

‘Ah,’ I pause. Jesse is being nice. This is nice. It feels like before, back when we were friends, but that’s the problem. I don’t trust him. I can’t trust him and this doesn’t change anything. And I don’t talk about my dad with anyone.

‘My dad hasn’t forgotten me. He’s just…he’s just not great at being a dad.’

I bend over in my seat a little more, trying to get comfortable. God, I hope they give me strong painkillers.

‘Let’s play Words with Friends,’ Jesse says suddenly.

‘Yes. Wait, no.’ I love Words with Friends but I’ll lose to him if I play in this state.

‘I feel like a competitive word game might be your best distraction.’

‘All right, let’s play but you have to remember I am in a weakened state, so you can’t judge me on this performance. My losses won’t count.’

‘We’ll delete all evidence that we ever played if you lose.’

‘No, that sounds pathetic. I’m not a sore loser. My losses will count.’

‘Fine. We’ll make a permanent record of it.’

We play on our phones, round after round, and it helps, and even though I don’t win as much as I should, I win enough to lift my spirits. Jesse is a good loser. He wants to win, but accepts the loss.

‘Brooke Williams!’ someone shouts, just as I’m about to make a big move and get rid of my J and X in one go.

Jesse looks at me, touches my arm, then quickly removes his hand.

‘You’re up. Do you want me to come with you or wait here?’