“I’m probably going to just pop down to Pret or something. Get one of those avo-falafel wraps,” he says.

“Yeah no,” I say—saying both yes and no as I always do when I want to say no to someone but without sounding harsh—“I can’t.”

“Oh, okay.” He looks a bit put out. I suppose he probably expected me to say yes after hearing my stomach rumble.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay. You want me to pick you up a coffee or anything?”

I shake my head. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Okay. Well.” He goes to open the door. “My number’s on the piece of paper I left on the table.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Hope your head feels better soon,” he says, and he opens the door—momentarily letting in a huge amount of dazzlingly bright light—slips out, and disappears down the hall.

I lie down on the floor. It’s just plain concrete with nothing on top. No carpet or rug or anything. The cold feels good on my back. The lights are still low. I’m more comfortable in the dark. It’s not even that the lights in here would burn me; it’s that sometimes too much light is overwhelming, especially after a day filled with things I’m not used to doing much of—packing, moving, traveling. It’s too much input, almost painful for the brain, not necessarily the skin. However, sunlight does burn. Not in the way it does in films and TV programs; I don’t let off smoke or singe, or burst into flames. Rather, my skin burns as if it has no pigment at all, as if I’m without any melanin, as if I’m completely and purely white.

I roll over onto my side. I can see the sink, fridge, and microwave from here. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Partly because I’ve been so busy. I left Mum’s house at seven-thirty. I went around all the rooms one last time to make sure there was nothing left behind. Crimson Orchard recommends that residents have as many of their belongings—photos, books, furniture even, any personal artifacts—arranged around their rooms as possible, because old things with memories already associated with them encourage the formation of new memories, apparently. But Mum still ended up having too much stuff. She essentially had several lives’ worth of belongings all stuffed into our little two-bedroom house. And some of it was really, really old. An ancient pair of spring scissors ended up being taken by a local museum when I put them up for sale on Facebook. One of my old school friends who works at the museum had seen my post and talked to the curator to see how much she would offer for them—and it turned out that they could offer a fair amount: enough to pay for a couple of months’ rent on my studio.