‘Kat, Kat… it’s me Josh.’ I’m suddenly aware of someone grabbing me. ‘Wake up, wake up.’
‘She just fell, she was holding a milk bottle, she dropped it. She just fell, she’ll be fine,’ Zoe’s saying, as I try to tell the truth, but struggling to speak past the pain in my head.
‘She won’t be fine, Mum. I heard you shouting. What happened?’
‘What happened? I might ask you the same question! Can’t you do anything on your own? Why did you have to call your bloody boyfriend?’
‘Because you locked my bedroom door and I couldn’t get out,’ Jodie hisses.
Then I hear Josh, I think he’s on the phone, and Zoe’s yelling at him. ‘We don’t need an ambulance, just leave it, Josh, she’s coming round. Look, she’ll be fine. Will everyone stop being so dramatic, a good night’s sleep is all she needs.’
But the very thought of being asleep in Zoe’s home now fills me with horror. I’m trying to tell Josh things aren’t right, but I can’t compose a sentence.
‘Amy,’ I mumble. ‘Ask… where… Amy is…’
‘She wants to know where Amy is, why is she asking that?’ Josh is saying. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It was an accident.’ Jodie’s crying and Zoe’s telling her to shut up.
‘Take… me… in the car,’ I’m saying to Jodie now. ‘We have to… get out.’
‘No, she’ll be fine, I’ll bathe her head,’ Zoe snaps, trying to manhandle me across the floor.
‘Come on, Kat,’ Jodie suddenly says, leaning down, putting her hands under my arms, and for the first time in her life she goes against her mother’s wishes. ‘Grab her, Josh, let’s get her to the car.’
As Zoe yells her protests, with their help I am lifted to my feet and they virtually carry me through the front door and throw me in the back of the car.
I’m vaguely aware of my arm dangling, it bangs against the car door as the kids try to squeeze me into Jodie’s tiny Fiat, but I’m so terrified I feel no pain.
‘Drive, drive,’ Josh yells, and I see Zoe running towards the car to try and stop us, but Jodie sets off and the car screeches away down the country roads.
‘What the fuck?’ Josh is saying.
‘She’s mad, she’s mad,’ Jodie says. ‘If you hadn’t come when I called you, she’d have smashed Kat’s head in and I’d still be locked in my room.’
‘But why? I don’t understand,’ he says.
I hear this, and I’m nodding, but unable to contribute to the conversation. I’m lying in a foetal position on the back seat, holding my head and groaning in pain.
‘I’ll tell you everything, but first, let’s get Kat to hospital.’
As Jodie drives, I see early-morning sky whizzing by above me, still starry, still dark, but with the promise of morning. But not for Amy. And even in this state, with a headache from hell and blood everywhere, I know that Zoe is right. If Amy isn’t here anymore, then I don’t want to be here either.