7.10 am

Two girls kissing on Instagram. Duae puellae osculantur. What does it mean (sustaining or draining?) if it makes you feel something warm but also makes you anxious? If you love someone does that definitely mean kissing? And what happens if one person wants to kiss and the other wants to do it only in their head? Or they want to do it in reality but they’re afraid of what will happen if someone touches their face?

Pen shouldn’t check her phone before she’s even got up, it always makes her feel like this, kind of deathly, and she doesn’t want that today, today will be the best day. It’s not like the girls in the picture are really together, it’s all a fake, an ad for something, the jeans maybe, and you’re meant to think it’s happy so then you’ll want to buy the exact same outfit. There are so many things you have to think of from just one thing. (Each post is apparently worth 4g of carbon, which is draining. But then online is sustaining because she is better at online than Real Life.) It isn’t like flying, though. One flight, even just to England, is basically too much carbon to imagine. And over a lifetime, how many flights? Draining. Unless they make air fuel out of hydrocarbons, that would reduce it, but it would still cost something. Every time you do anything, something is dying. She taps the heart on the screen to like it (one of the girls is a redhead), and that’s another 0.2g of carbon so she has killed something. Sorry.

Pen lies under the weighted blanket, eyeing the blackout blind, thinking about putting one foot out, maybe getting up, but that requires more, a different kind of energy. She might find a way to make something not kill something. If she lies here, holding her breath, is she neutral? (People say, ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ as if the fear of asphyxiating automatically outweighs the need for hope.) The air is tight in Pen’s lungs, until she remembers that today will be a good day and the air comes out in a rush.

Today she will take Alice’s hand and maybe she won’t even need to speak, maybe the gesture will be enough, they’ve held hands before, but that seems so innocent now, back before they were … (What are they?) Anyway, Pen is so grateful, that’s the word she feels, just to stand with her, so grateful to be asked, so grateful that someone picked her. That Alice picked her. Today it will all go right. They’ll meet as arranged, and then have the whole day together. Pen has booked the tickets for later (a concert!) but Alice only knows there’s a surprise; the feeling this gives Pen is inexpressible, it’s a thrill running through her body, and she will take Alice’s hand and say the things she wants to say too, she won’t let what other people think matter, today the words will flow, forged by, driven by, love and aspiration, which means both breath (spiritus) and hope (spero).

No noise from the other room. Soraya isn’t up yet either. Pen risks looking at her phone again, 7.30, her mum will be banging on the ceiling with the brush handle soon, it’s always better to be up before that. There’s a picture of that singer, she could wear baggy clothes, the clothes are ugly (even Pen knows this), but the girl in them is so light, light pours from her, she can pretend to be ugly. It’s annoying how these pictures make you want to be someone else. ‘She probably has to wear a ton of make-up to cover up the spots and the dark circles and you are yourself, Pen, you are lovely just as you are, look at how strong you are.’ Her mum is always saying things like that. ‘This house is not a hotel,’ that’s another favourite, which is so obvious. How cool it would be to stay in a hotel and watch movies and order room service. Her and Alice maybe. Or just her.

Pen hugs her knees to her chest, lying on her side, face slipping off the pillow onto the mattress, and she remembers how she had lain like this that night and Alice, amazingly beautiful Alice, had lain down next to Pen, arms around her from behind, but only gently, and had stroked her arm, pushed her face into Pen’s back, whispered so gently that Pen wondered had it really been words or just thoughts moving between them. Alice’s fingers had paused on her arm, and reached a little, just a little, forward, until the tips, just the tips, of three digits had rested on Pen’s right breast. Alice had whispered that they could pretend it was just the two of them in the world, and they had lain like that, Pen not moving, just holding her breath (do hold your breath). She should have turned to her then, Alice was so brave and Pen had said nothing, done nothing, then it had changed, something had shifted, Pen felt it, and it was just a hug again. But for a moment there had been something, she knows there had, and it is a fact: she had been held.

Pen sits up, the blanket falls back, today will be the day, they have the whole day for the longest, most perfect date in the world. She pulls the blind up, and no rain, that’s a good sign. Hurry to the bathroom to claim it before Soraya. In the shower, Pen soaps everywhere, passing her hand over her soft and smooth skin, lightly touching where the bumps can still be felt. It’s still healing, that’s what the doctor said, and if Pen puts vitamin E oil on, soon no one will even notice. Pen thinks that if she really heals it will be because someone else touches her, touches the raised lines that run in neat rows along the soft pink flesh of her thighs.

Pen shuts off the hot water, how are you meant to stick to three minutes? Dutifully she squeegees the walls (this house is not a hotel). Maybe she should use her mother’s expensive cream on her face? It says ‘glow’ on the jar, and it might make Alice see her the way she sees Alice. A glow. Aglow. Pen wipes the glass with her hand. It’s weird when you look in the mirror, you see your face the way no one else does, you look into your own eyes. Pen wonders if this means you know how you look better than anyone else does, better in this case meaning more accurate but perhaps also better? Or worse? Meaning both. Pen has a no-selfie policy because her eyes are not where they’re meant to be in the photos, her whole face is somehow out of alignment, that’s not what I look like, she wants to say. Her mother tells her not to worry so much, that ‘no one is looking at you, Pen’. Secretly, very secretly, Pen fears she is vain (and also, everyone is looking at her). Ecce! In pictura est puella. It’s how every story begins.

‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts,’ her mother chants over and over, saying things like ‘mirror tax’, because these-days-young-women have all their ambition sapped just by basically fighting-off-all-the-negative-messaging. Pen’s mother talks like this, in speeches sometimes. It comes of being a lecturer. And she has rules, too, about looking at things online, about texting other people when you’re with someone, mealtimes are quality time, as if time has different qualities – good or bad, it passes at exactly the same rate. Actually, that is not a fact. Time runs faster the higher the altitude so that if Pen is upstairs and her mother is downstairs, her time is faster or more compressed or something than her mother’s, but who is to say which is the better quality? What is on the inside isn’t the right thing to say, anyway, because what if what’s on the inside is even more different? That’s another thing Pen can’t say, can only think, because if she says it out loud she’ll get a long talk on everyone-is-different. Obviously, thinks Pen, rolling her eyes when she gets that particular lecture.

Different is like special, one of those words that people say with a kind of emphasis that makes them think they’re being tactful. ‘Just say what you actually mean,’ Pen wants to shout, only then people would tell her she was over-excited. At least the woman-therapist agrees. And at least she understands that what Pen needs is not so much a label, as strategies to calm the world’s chaos. Okay, then, the woman-therapist says. Feel the triggers, Pen. Feel them, Name them, Know them. Look at your hands, because that’ll give you a sense of control. When people talk to you, don’t look at their faces, too much stimulus. When your brain has too much in it, work out which it is, thinking or feeling? What is the feeling? Positive, negative, neutral? Pen has made observation her ally. Pen used to just call her ‘the woman’ because having to go to a therapist was basically proof that she was not like other girls, but then her mother said, ‘Come on, Pen, don’t fall for that old shame trick.’ Because her mother has a therapist too. So Pen came up with her own label.

Pen’s room is difficult, it doesn’t take much observation to know that. It’s either totally tidy or totally messy and today is messy, which makes getting in the door hard because she has to step over and around things and that’s complicated. She should keep it tidy but just because you should do something doesn’t mean you do it and sometimes she feels like shouting that none of the rules, even if she follows all of them, will mean she’s not going to get knotted up or freeze or bump into things. Pen had actually said this in a session and the woman-therapist had paused and it sounded like she was laughing but obviously not because that was against the rules, and then she said, ‘Oh Pen, it’s so normal, you’re just a teenager.’ So that Pen felt better and allowed herself one door slam when she got home and afterwards, at dinner, her mother had said, ‘What was that all about?’ but didn’t freak out. None of which helps Pen right now because everything is everywhere, so she just takes her cool-date-outfit from the chair and the fabric is soft and smooth against her skin, which makes her feel instantly better. The floor thumps, which is the ceiling for her mother, and whatever the speed of time, it’s time to go down.

Crash goes the dish, crunch goes the toast, and Pen winces as the water pump grinds because it is so much worse when other people make noise. ‘You’ll be careful today,’ Claire says. Claire is Pen’s mother and she means well and wants to keep her safe but she doesn’t want her to go, Pen knows, because she doesn’t understand. Pen is doing it for love.

‘There may be some – you know, not everyone will be there necessarily for the same reasons as you are, and it’ll be loud.’

Pen just concentrates on the line of little pills on the table, on the feeling of yellow cereal softening in her mouth.

‘You can leave any time you want to,’ Claire persists, because her daughter hates noise, hates people around her, prefers to be by herself, is perfectly happy by herself in fact, so hundreds of people on a demonstration will be hard. Claire would fight anyone to the death who said her daughter shouldn’t be allowed to do some things, but she also wishes she could keep her at home sometimes. ‘I mean, the climate is important, I just wish you were going to school—’

‘CLAIRE!’

Well, at least it’s a response. Pen had made the day off sound like a civics lesson and Claire is familiar with the strikes, excusing students from her own classes on Fridays, but this is a Monday and Pen is in fifth year, it doesn’t really matter that she’s better at English than her teacher practically, turning up is important, and Claire knows there are different ways to learn, but it’s doubtful the geography exam will include a section on Extinction Rebellion.

Even Pen, when she stops to think about it, feels the threat of exams looming, a kind of fear at the bottom of her stomach. But then that’s what every day feels like.

Bang! Most of the noise comes from the smallest person. Soraya is making a bid for attention. Pen can’t see her, doesn’t look up from studying the milk in the bowl, the few floating flakes (rumour has it there’s more salt in a bowl of these than in seawater), but she hears her shuffle and whine and breathe too loudly. She’s asking for an apple now, ‘for school’. She doesn’t even like apples, Pen thinks, but then as Claire reaches for the fridge door, rustling the bags as she pulls the apple out, and Pen imagines pushing her sister so she’s out of her face, she feels Soraya lean close to her and whisper, ‘Have a good time today.’ Pen is so surprised she looks up at Soraya’s beatific smile. It is the O’Neill family yo-yo effect, christened by Sandy, that just at the point you start thinking, this can’t be my family, they’re driving me crazy, one of them will turn round and do or say something to make you feel amazing.

And suddenly today is going to be good again, Pen feels it in her bones. Her mother puts an apple on the table in front of her body.

‘Stack the dishwasher, put away last night’s dry dishes, do something with your bedroom because it’s a total disaster, Pen, and this isn’t a hotel.’ Claire has decided she may as well get some housework out of her daughter, she’s fishing in her bag, coat in hand, ‘Here’s something for today,’ the money on the table. ‘Make sure you eat, wear your mac, I don’t care if it’s not cool, you don’t want to catch a flu.’ Pen nods. ‘You could say something once in a while.’ Claire sounds like she’s annoyed, although she’s not – it was meant to come out funny.

But Pen raises her head, looks over at her mother, and then lifts her hands and shimmies them in the air. Soraya has her hands up now and Claire too, an unbreakable circle. The O’Neill women. ‘Have a good day, I’ll see you for Monday-night-pizza.’ The front door bangs, the walls shake a little.

Today Pen will not shake, today the words will come, today she will take Alice’s hand.