I feel weirdly animal. Calm, but like I want to run for a very long time and very far, and not just using my legs, but on all fours. It’s as if the demon in me wants to escape my human body, now that I’ve drunk milk. But, I can’t move. My body is extraordinarily heavy. I can’t lift my head. It feels like it’s made of a dense and heavy wood. As I breathe in again, I smell Ben. I smell his shower gel, and his sweat; I smell a bit of dirt, maybe on his shoes, and I smell his saliva, and his skin, and a hint of his blood; my senses, I suppose, have been dulled a little by the milk. I’m close to Ben, but I can’t smell his brain at all, I can’t hear the streams of blood in his veins.

“Oh, hey, you’re up,” Ben says. He comes over with the Dairylea box. “Want one?” he asks. I shake my head very slightly, all the movement I can manage. I watch his mouth moving: his jaws opening and closing and opening and closing as he chews. “God, yeah, I guess you probably don’t fancy cheese right now, do you? You feeling better?”

I open my mouth. It kind of pops open like my lips had been sealed closed with something. Ben’s face looks so soft and radiant, like a peach. He puts some more cheese into his mouth, and I feel an intense envy. The veins in his arm and forehead stay their beautiful red and blue colors. “I’m so disgusting,” I whisper.

“No, no,” Ben says, through a mouthful of cheese. “No, you’re not. Don’t worry. You’re just sick.” He swallows. “I don’t mind at all,” he adds. Then he looks thoughtful for a moment. “So, what happened?”

“I drank some bad milk.” My voice comes out quiet. It doesn’t project well.

“Oh, okay,” Ben says. Then he pauses. He purses his lips like he’s struggling to say something. “Yeah, it’s just I sniffed the milk and it seemed fine. We were wondering if maybe you were high or something?” Ben looks at his hands. “Like, you were talking about your mum and stuff. I mean, you weren’t talking about her but you were kind of calling out to her.” He clears his throat. He looks embarrassed. “I’d understand if you were feeling . . . I don’t know . . . and you . . . you know. Are you, like . . . I mean, do you . . . do you miss her?”