We hugged and exclaimed at the time passed, before introducing our best friends to each other—hers a girl, Sally, from her school. A tall girl with long black hair. We stood together and took each other in. Jade had hennaed her hair red and wore giant baggy jeans, while Sally wore a Courtney Love T-shirt, and I felt instantly relaxed now we’d found people like us.

“Isn’t it amazing not to be in a school anymore?” Jade had said. “I feel so FREE. We’re allowed to call the teachers by their real names and everything.”

Sally raised both her dark eyebrows. “Jade doesn’t need much to get excited.”

We’d clicked pretty instantly, glad to have an anchor to our pasts. As the first week continued, our friendship group grew. Sally met this quiet, ethereal girl in her art class called Georgina, who seemed cool. She talked a lot about her upcoming parent-free house, and how she collected different pairs of fairy wings. Jade then bumped into a boy from her primary school called Mike. He was a very exciting acquisition, with his blue spiked hair teamed with a dog collar necklace. He was in a band, which seemed way too cool to comprehend, and introduced us all to his bandmates. Wow, I remember thinking, speaking to Mike and seeing black nail polish on one thumb. This boy is so cool, and he is speaking to me. So maybe I am so cool? The boys talked constantly about bands like Metallica and Pantera, assuming we had the vaguest idea who they were referring to, never asking us what music we liked. And, us girls, we merely nodded and said, “oh yes, love them,” then later quietly went to HMV, bought as many CDs as we could afford, sat ourselves down in our bedrooms, and taught ourselves to like them too.

And, so, I was at my first house party since my new life began. A life where nobody but Jessica knew me as the girl who tried to kill herself. Fern for the first time in a long time. I was in my third year of CBT, and my medication was at the perfect level. I’d dropped all the lessons I hated, and was geeking out by taking both English Literature and English Language at A level. It was All-new Fern, apart from the age-old problem... Boys still did not appear to fancy me. I couldn’t believe my bucket hat hadn’t done the trick. Jessica had promised me it was cool.

“Where’s Jessica?” Jade asked, combing her red hair through with her fingers. “I’ve not seen her for about an hour.”

“I think she’s in the downstairs bathroom.”

“Whoa, she’s been some time.”

“She’s in there with Mike.”

“Oh...” Jade held her bottle to her lips and chugged half of it down. “Oh...”

“Are you OK?”