I crawl back into Mum’s arms and watch the dreams flutter by under her eyelids until it’s properly morning. When she wakes I take the key from the coffee table in the living room and kneel down to unchain her from the bed.

‘The detox is up,’ I tell her, biting my lip. She touches the spot where the chain had rubbed this last little while.

‘Hallelujah,’ she replies drolly.

She has a shower and I catch my reflection in her cracked dresser mirror. I feel a million years older than I did yesterday. I can’t believe I’m only fourteen. I feel like lines that you get from living are written all over me, except that they’re etched on the underside of my skin, so you can’t see them just by looking at me. Mum gets out of the shower and she’s wearing the fresh clothes that I washed a few days ago. She smells like the bed sheets that are folded up in the linen cupboard. She smells like she wants to keep me safe.

‘Are you going to help me, or what?’ she asks as she pads over to the living room. I follow her, confused. She heads over to the liquor cabinet.

Oh God no.

Please no.

She takes the last two bottles out of the cabinet and carries them into the kitchen. I think she’s going to take a glass and pour herself a drink.

Shit.

I want to stop her. I don’t know what to do.

‘Don’t think for a second I’m condoning what you did, those chains were bloody uncomfortable,’ she tells me as she passes a bottle of gin over to me. I’m just staring at her, confused, as she unscrews the lid from the bottle she’s holding. It takes me a moment to realise what she’s doing, but then I understand. I unscrew the lid from the bottle in my hand, and we both start pouring the gin down the sink. The drain drinks it up.

‘Knock knock,’ calls a voice from the front door. I open it to find Willow standing there on my patio. ‘You’re quite the celebrity today, I saw you in the paper,’ she says. I shrug, embarrassed, and stand aside so she can come in. I don’t know what to say so I chew my lip as Willow clocks Mum pouring the alcohol down the sink.

‘Hey there, Judy. Did Kirra tell you how to taper off alcohol like my dad did?’

Mum shoots me a wry look.

‘She did indeed,’ deadpans Mum. ‘I’m sorry, have we met?’

Willow raises an eyebrow at her.

‘Uh huh. The social. You were telling me about your cupcakes, and how you wanted to give me beer. I declined, politely of course.’

Mum buries her head in her hands. ‘Oh God.’

Willow hoists her lips up into an amused half smile. ‘You were very sociable.’ Then she turns to me, and her face has settled back into that serious expression of hers. Her grey eyes have melted into a molten sort of silver as she furrows her brows. ‘So the thing is, I’ve been ignoring your calls for over a week now, but it’s kind of defeating the purpose, because it can’t hurt you any more than it’s hurting me. Can we chat?’

A small smile creeps onto my face. ‘Hells yeah, sweet dollface child.’

Willow narrows her eyes. ‘Are you mocking me?’

I grin and shake my head. ‘Never!’

She sticks her tongue out before laughing, and starts to head outside. I turn back to look at Mum before I step out the door, and I see her staring at the fridge, or rather, she’s looking hard at the page I’d ripped out of the yellow pages and stuck up there weeks ago, the one with the local Alcoholics Anonymous ad circled in thick red ink.

Willow and I are sitting on the swings at the park. She lights a cigarette and looks hard at me as the smoke forms a fog around her.

‘So unless construction has suddenly become thrilling to you, I can’t imagine why you’d be at McGinty’s scrap pile,’ she says, her eyebrows raised questioningly.

I kick at the dirt below me and wonder what to reply. I look over to her and shrug. ‘You found a hole in my alibi, huh officer?’

Her gaze doesn’t flinch, and I sigh. ‘So you know how I can never lie when I’m looking a person straight in the eye?’

She nods. ‘You’d make for a terrible spy.’

I nod back, mock seriously. ‘I would. It’s a shame because I always wanted to be a Bond girl.’ She doesn’t smile, and I take a breath to try to keep my voice steady. ‘Anyway, I’m going to tell you something, and you probably won’t believe me, but I’m going to look you in the eye the whole time, and I promise you it’s the truth.’

She takes another drag and nods. I keep my gaze on her. ‘So remember down at the creek when I told you my life was complicated . . .’

My eyes never flinch as I tell her about everything, even though tears spill down my face and do little dives off my chin. At the beginning she rolls her eyes.

‘Oh sure, it’s all a ghostie’s fault,’ she mutters, but I just nod and keep talking and I don’t look away, and slowly she stops looking unimpressed, she just studies my face and she doesn’t interrupt again, she lets me keep going, right up until I tell her about chaining my mother up to the bedpost.

‘You did what, you midget lunatic?’ she splutters. ‘That’s like, ridiculously illegal, not to mention, you know, dangerous. And batshit crazy.’

‘So my mum kept telling me.’

She blows a smoke ring and I keep going. Finally I tell her about what I learnt yesterday. By the time I’m finished I’m shaking, and my voice is strangled, trying to keep the sobs inside of me, but my eyes never look away. It takes a while for her to talk. The seconds stretch out achingly as she stubs out her second cigarette. She leans her head against the chain of the swing and looks intently at me as her hair swoops over half her face. I bite my lip and will her to say something.

Anything.

She doesn’t.

Her metal grey eyes just become less and less solid, and when a tear escapes from her eye it reminds me of mercury spilling from a snapped thermometer.

‘Please don’t say I’m a liar,’ I whisper. She shakes her head.

‘Weirdly, I believe you, K. It’s totally insane, but you can’t lie that well. You just can’t. You’ve either completely cracked it and you’re hallucinating, or we really need to look up our friendly neighbourhood exorcist in the yellow pages.’

Something like the lovechild of a sob and a laugh escapes from my throat. Willow gets up from the swing and moves over to hug me.

‘Jesus bloody Christ, I so should have been there for you, sweet pea,’ she mutters into my hair. ‘I should have answered your calls. I was an awful friend.’

I pull back from her arms.

‘No, I win the awful friend trophy. Remember Noah’s party?’

She nods very seriously as she digs into her pocket and hands me a crumpled-up tissue.

‘A charming drunk, you are not.’

We meet each other’s eyes and crack up, our laughter shaking the park from its morning stillness. I realise that for the first time ever, I don’t feel like I’m being buffeted about by the world anymore, grasping onto snapping branches as I’m blown from one thing to another. I can feel the earth holding up my feet. I can feel gravity settling down on my shoulders. And I know that if the storms do return, well then Willow and I will take turns sheltering each other from the winds, because that’s what friendship is.