Of course, my happiness for Jamie and my overall flowery contentedness with life doesn’t stop me berating myself. My brain is full of angry rhetorical interrogators. How could I have been so wrong about who I was and what I wanted? How could I have fucked up so monumentally? And when I finally came to my senses, how could I have been so arrogant as to imagine Jamie would be sitting around for years waiting for a fuck-up like me who didn’t know who I was or what I wanted? Why hadn’t I woken up sooner? Why couldn’t I have been the one to give her happiness? And if I’m so much flipping happier now, why does this still hurt so bloody much? Sure, I’m still walking upright this time, but why does my chest still feel as heavy as it did the first time we ended? Or heavier even? Or emptier? Like the hole is bigger? If I reckon I’m going to be so bloody ok then why is it somehow harder to breathe now that everything is out of my control, now that it’s no longer my choice, and now that I know for certain this is final? Why am I always, still, forever, such a fucking loser?

These questions are the soundtrack to my journey home and as I turn my key in the lock, steeling myself to give Freya the bad news, I think I have never known such bottomless grief, and that surely this must be the worst grief I will ever feel.

I am wrong.

The house is quiet, and I remember my mum has taken Vannah for the day. I want to allow Freya to rest, so I close the kitchen door and start making myself a tea as quietly as possible. But it’s no good. I pace the kitchen, repeatedly running through the conversation with Jamie in my mind and by the time the kettle’s boiled I decide my brain alone can’t possibly contain this much self-loathing, self-pity, and self-flagellation, so I pull down an extra mug from the shelf. Freya will need to be alert to listen to me whine. I give myself a green and Freya a Yorkshire black teabag. For almost her entire life Freya has been caffeine-free. She plied herself with all manner of illegal substances, but her body was a temple, or a Mormon church perhaps, when it came to caffeine. That was until Savannah showed up and, in Freya’s words, she was so exhausted it was either start drinking tea or get far more seriously into cocaine. Now a true caffeine addict, Freya will only drink black coffee or Yorkshire tea, the latter because it’s the strongest and because, as she says, people in Yorkshire know how to make a bloody good brew. I tried to inform her that research shows tea and coffee only really serve to bring a caffeine addict’s level of alertness up to that of a non-addict’s without caffeine, and that if I could go back in time I would choose to never get hooked in the first place. But, as she always does when I start a sentence with research shows, Freya told me to piss off back to the lab and play with my spiders.

I leave her teabag to stew for longer than mine and add only a touch of milk, whereas to mine I add plenty of the teeth-whiteness-protecting juice. I stir in a sweetener for Freya, leaving mine au naturale. I pick up one mug in each hand and walk towards the door, then remember I had closed the kitchen door. I try to open it with the bottom of my right hand and the base of the mug it’s holding, but this proves impossible. So I turn around and, being careful not to spill any hot liquid while I do so, I make a small jumping motion, lean back against the door and then push down on the handle with my bum. It opens outwards a little quicker than I had anticipated and I lose balance slightly, but I proudly regain it without compromising either tea. This incident reminds me there will be another door to deal with at the other end, and that’s why I always think I should use a tray when taking Freya some tea, however, I never remember. But today I’ve remembered in time. Hurray! A small win on a terrible day.

I place the mugs back on the counter and look around for the lovely William Morris print tray from the V&A. Jamie bought me that tray, and she’d had to explain to me who William Morris was on more than one occasion. He sounded like a nice guy, but I don’t want to think about him or her right now, so I push that thought out of my head and continue the search. I check all the cupboards and drawers and have almost given up and convinced myself that perhaps I left the tray at Jamie’s when we broke up – even though I know that can’t be the case because I remember it being one of the many items I used to cry over in the first months post-breakup – when I finally spy it resting on top of one of the wall cupboards. Even on tip-toes and at full extension I can’t reach it and I’m scared to jump and pull it down just in case it has something fragile resting on top that I can’t see from this angle. I fetch the footstool from the living room, the footstool Freya has commandeered as a footrest for the rare moments she gets to pop her feet up, and use this to safely bring down the dusty tray. I wash it, and mindful now that the teas may be getting a little cold, I quickly load them up and begin my journey anew. I proceed only a few steps before noticing the mugs have not been sensibly placed and so I stop to address the unbalanced tray, sliding the mugs gently apart, careful not to spill the tea or let the tray go plummeting to the floor. When I’m confident I have symmetry and stability, I journey on, laughing at myself as I realise this precarious tray situation has absorbed my attention entirely and, for a few seconds at least, I haven’t been thinking about Jamie. Those seconds have passed though, so I’m back to kicking myself for not being who I should have been for her, for not knowing that I actually was who I should have been for her, or both. My stomach lurches when I think of having to tell Freya that it didn’t work. That she’s moved on. That she’s happy. That I’m happy for her. That I’m miserable about her. I know Freya will want to know exactly what was said and she’ll think I didn’t try hard enough. But I’ll ask her to be kind to me and I know she will be and I’ll crawl into bed next to her and we’ll drink tea and have sister chats like the ones we used to have when I was young and she was even younger. And when we’ve finished our tea I’ll ask her to hug me, and she’ll huff and puff and kick up a fuss because I’m such a soppy nancy, but she’ll give me a hug and the human touch will hopefully induce my body to release oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, and for a few moments maybe that will be enough to make me feel ok again.

I’m nearly at the top of the steps when the muscles in my left arm start to spasm under the weight of the tray. It’s not particularly heavy but my arms have been prone to cramping lately because of the weight of lifting Savannah. On the plus side, despite having more of a tummy nowadays, my arms are more toned than they have ever been, although it doesn’t feel like much of a plus when the cramps hit. The sudden movement leaves me unbalanced and as I look behind me down the stairs a wave of vertigo hits me. I run from the feeling and without breathing I race up the last few steps. At the top of the stairs I can exhale, but I still don’t look back down. Instead, as I wait for the cramp to pass, my attention turns to the teas which have not come away from this last skirmish unscathed. Although the mugs are still almost full, they were previously fully-full, a mixture of green and black tea is now making patterns across the tray, almost as pretty as the William Morris flowers. I tilt the tray slightly, first this way, then that, mesmerized by the accidental beauty. An aunt on my mother’s side used to read people’s fortunes in the tea leaves at the bottom of their cups and I wonder what the journey of the spilled tea across this tray is saying about my fortune. I have a feeling it can’t be saying anything good. It certainly seems to be indicating the tea I’ll soon drink will be cold, so when my left arm is back to normal I hold the tray in both hands and pick up the momentum again.

As I turn onto the landing I’m disappointed to see Freya’s door is closed. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to face any more obstacles. I walk towards it and as my hands are once again both occupied by the tray I try to knock on the door with my elbow. This might have worked if I weren’t wearing a soft long-sleeved top, but the cushioning means the knock is muffled. I try again, a few times, with no reply. Although I’m unsure my left arm has sufficiently recovered, I entrust it with the whole weight of the tray and knock properly with my right hand. No reply. I look back down at the spilled tea and I’m hit by something that feels like another wave of vertigo, except I’m safe on solid ground, and when I realize what I’m feeling isn’t vertigo but something more akin to déjà vu, I frantically claw at the handle and open the door.

She’s lying on top of the duvet with her back to me, and I know.

Immediately I know.

But I’ve known before with Freya and I’ve been wrong. So I don’t want to know, I still have hope.

‘Freya?’ I say to her back, tentatively. ‘I brought you some tea.’

No response.

‘Freya?’ I say again, louder this time, as I walk forward past the bottom of her bed, ‘It didn’t go well with Jamie…wake up please…I need you.’

No response.

I’m in front of her now, looking straight on at her. She looks like she’s sleeping. Maybe she’s only sleeping. Except something is wrong. Her colour is wrong somehow. She’s somehow too still. And what’s that on the bedside table? What are all those packets, so many packets, doing there? And why have I dropped the tray and spilled the tea all over myself? And why does she feel stiff? And why isn’t she moving even though I’m shaking her very hard now, too hard now. And what is that awful sound? Can’t someone stop that fucking terrible sound? And why am I choking?

I step back and realize the awful guttural sound is me. I’m screaming, or wailing, or something, and I can’t control it. I run downstairs, shouting no, no, no, no repeatedly on the way. I grab my mobile from my coat pocket and ring an ambulance, keeping hope alive, even though I’ve killed too many lab rats to know when it’s too late. Then I run back upstairs, three at a time, and I start doing what I’ve seen people do on TV, what I vaguely remember being taught at Brownies when I was eight years old. I hold Freya’s nose and breathe into her mouth. But after a while I remember that’s maybe not what we’re supposed to do now. I think I read somewhere we’re supposed to just pump the chest now. Why didn’t I sign up to be a first-aider at work? I press down on her chest with both hands hard, again and again and again, and I breathe into her mouth for good measure too, and I keep doing it again and again and again and again and again and again and again…

The ambulance arrives. And even then, even though it’s been too long, I still have hope, and I race down the stairs and I let them in and I race them upstairs, and their speed and their urgency and their coordination is thrilling, and I still have hope, I still believe, even though I know, I just know, they may as well have sent a hearse. It’s too late. No longer urgent in their manner. Instead, respectful and sympathetic. They confirm it for me.

It’s too late.

They’re sorry.

It’s too late, there was nothing they could do.

They’re sorry.

I stare at them blankly as they go about their work, moving Freya, being so gentle with her, for which I am grateful. They tell me some things I don’t compute and they try to make me leave the room but I ignore them and carry on staring. All I can think is that it can’t be true. It can’t be true because I still have to tell her what happened with Jamie. She would want to hear that. I’d made her a cup of tea. She likes tea now. I was going to force her to hug me against her will. She would have wanted to hug me if I needed it.

And I really really really need it right now.