They told themselves whatever it was they wanted to hear, they said whatever they could to absolve themselves of guilt. And then they left. They picked up their things, shuffled out of the hospital, past the cameras and reporters camped at the front entrance, and just left. Shawn took off in a cab without a word; Finn gave the keys to the truck back to her father and rode home with Nicki and Ross. In the car she sat in the passenger seat and watched Nicki while she drove, her hands resting on the steering wheel just like Finn’s did, the expression of concentration on her face as she merged onto the highway the same one Finn makes. It occurred to her that she knew exactly what Nicki and Dallas looked like while they were fucking. Nicki and Dallas, fucking. Again. She didn’t know if she wanted to throw up, punch someone, or burst out laughing. Instead, she just pressed her head against the window, watching the other cars on the highway fly by as they headed south, wishing she was in one of them instead, going somewhere else, back to another life.

It was just after eight when they got back to Victor Street, pulling into the driveway at the same time as Hamish, who was just arriving home from Terrace Bay.

“Who’s with the girls?” Hamish asked as he hopped out of his truck.

Nicki and Finn turned to each other. In the quiet of the evening they could suddenly hear a burst of laughter, an underlying thump of bass. “Oh, Christ,” said Nicki. “I’ll fucking kill them.”

They walked into what appeared to Finn to be the set of an over-the-top movie-of-the-week on the dangers of drinking: kids making out in corners, grinding on couches, and dancing on tables, music blasting, the ground carpeted with empty Gatorade bottles that most certainly had, at one point, contained a horrifying mixture of sports drink and whatever kind of liquor they could find. Meanwhile Tommy and Petey – where did they even come from? – had turned the kitchen into a battlefield, with a line of whipped cream sprayed as a boundary down the middle and a boy on either side flinging hamburger meat balled up into little pellets at the other. Ross took one look at the scene and ran upstairs to his room. Through the kitchen window Finn saw her father’s truck pull into the driveway, and then back out again, peeling away up the street. Lucky bastard.

“Everyone get the fuck out!” Nicki roared.