Chapter Twenty-Four

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I didn't stay at Warren's that night, much as I wanted to. I spent a lot of the day in bed, sometimes with Kell holding me, sometimes just lying there, staring blankly up at the ceiling and wondering if this was how it felt to go mad. The anger wasn't seething under my skin like it had done in the past; instead that hole had become a block of ice, spreading through me, numbing me, but not in the nice, floaty way I had been hoping for.

When evening came around, more people turned up at the house, and someone turned on music so loud it felt like the walls in Kell's room were shaking. People came up and downstairs, their feet thumping on the steps, and everyone was talking and laughing, and it was noisy I wanted to stab my own eardrums.

I had to get out of here.

Kell offered to come home with me, but I still wasn't ready for that. For all I knew, Dad was back by now, and if he started spouting more anti-Kell crap, I was going to hit him.

I was going to hit him and I wasn't going to stop, and that should have frightened me, but it didn't.

I couldn't seem to feel much of anything.

So I went home, still wearing Kell's clothes, and found the house as empty and dark as I'd left it.

I took some wine from the rack in the kitchen and drank it, straight from the bottle, in bed. I didn't care about the taste anymore.

Then I lay there all night, staring at the ceiling and wondering when my Mum would die.

Dad didn't call.

Lori didn't call.

Kell texted several times, but I didn't have the energy to respond.

I wasn't floating now, I was sinking, but this wasn't like drowning. This was like being sucked into quicksand. It was heavy and suffocating, and Kell couldn't help me because he wasn't in the same place. He was drowning in water. I couldn't reach him.

And he couldn't reach me.





I didn't go to school again the next day, and no one called.

I looked at my uniforms – the one I'd left in a dirty heap on my bedroom floor, and the clean one sitting in a neatly folded pile on my chest of drawers – and considered setting fire to them.

I tried calling Dad, but there was no answer. I didn't bother calling the hospice. What was the point?

This would have been hard enough if we had all been there for each other, but I'd driven Lori off, and Dad had driven both of us off.

I got ready for the day ahead, and I didn't even notice the shower was ice-cold until I'd been standing under it for half an hour. The fridge was full of food, but my stomach was a lump of cement. I made myself some toast, but after the first bite I threw it in the bin. Then I kicked the bin, hard enough to leave a dent.

Mum's door was still locked.

I was still shut out of everything, and I realised that if I stayed here, I was going to smash something else. I texted Kell and told him I was coming back over. Then I grabbed a couple more bottles of wine, and left the house.





Warren answered the door when I knocked. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot, and there was a day's growth of stubble on his face, but he grinned at me.

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