My mum works here in the Westland Mall – not in a shop but as a receptionist in the doctor’s office on the top floor. Usually I go and meet her when she finishes at five-thirty and we drive home together. But after what’s happened I don’t feel like hanging around in the shops anymore, so I take the elevator up to level five. Maybe Mum will be able to leave early.

Mum’s standing behind the desk when I walk in. Straight away, I notice that she’s got a new name badge.

This one says Jillian Hoffman – her maiden name – instead of Jillian Saunders. It makes me feel weird, looking at it. It’s like my mum’s suddenly a different person. It also makes me wonder. Should Carolyn and I change our names too? But Dad is still our dad, even if he’s not Mum’s husband anymore, and he would be pretty upset if we did. But maybe Mum will be upset if we don’t.

Mum’s become very skinny over the last couple of months – especially around her face – but she still looks pretty, especially when she smiles. ‘Hello, honey. You’re early!’ she says to me. ‘Weren’t you meeting Ethan for a juice?’

I’m about to explain what happened when Shelley comes out of her office with a patient. ‘Hi, Anya!’ she says. ‘When are you going to hurry up and finish medical school? I could really use another doctor around here.’

I say hi back. Shelley is the doctor Mum works for and she’s really nice. She likes to be called by her first name rather than Dr Walters, because she says that makes her sound too old and scary. The only thing that bugs me about her is that she’s got this idea I want to come and work with her as a doctor one day. Which I definitely don’t. Maybe I told her once that I did when I was just a kid – but back then I thought her office was her home, and I liked the idea of living in the mall. There’s no way you’d catch me dealing with sick, germy people all day. Gross!

Shelley glances around the waiting room. There’s only one old woman left, sitting in the corner reading a magazine, who lets out a massive sneeze every minute or two.

‘You go, Jill,’ Shelley tells my mum. ‘I’ll close up after I’ve seen Mrs Carnegie.’

Even then, it takes Mum forever to shut down the computer and gather up her stuff. By the time we finally leave, I’m busting from the effort of keeping my bad news in for so long.

‘Ethan and I broke up,’ I say. ‘He dumped me.’

Mum gives my shoulder a distracted little squeeze with one hand, while the other one searches for something in her bag. ‘Oh sweetie,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry.’ But I know she isn’t really. The whole time I was going out with Ethan, Mum never took it seriously. I bet she thinks I’m too young to have a boyfriend. She wouldn’t react like this if Carolyn broke up with Max. Everyone takes that relationship seriously – Carolyn makes sure of it.

Then I have an idea. A brilliant one. One that might make me feel better about the whole Ethan thing. A tiny bit, at any rate. I slip my arm through Mum’s. ‘You know what would cheer me up?’ I say.

‘An ice-cream?’ suggests Mum.

I shake my head. I swear Mum still thinks I’m five sometimes. ‘No. Let’s go on that shopping expedition we’ve been planning. The shops are open for another hour.’

Mum looks confused. ‘What shopping expedition?’

I can’t believe she’s forgotten. ‘The bra shopping one,’ I say, as patiently as I can.

I remember when Mum and Carolyn went bra shopping together. It was supposed to be this big secret but I knew exactly what was going on. They went into town together one Saturday morning and bought three bras. Then they had lunch at a fancy cafe and came home on the train together. When they walked inside, they were chatting and laughing like they’d just had the best day ever.

Carolyn was only twelve when they went, and I’m thirteen and a quarter now. I kept waiting and waiting for Mum to say it was our turn to make the same trip. But she never did. I know I don’t have a whole lot going on in the chest area yet, but all my friends have bras. And I know, from sneaking a look around when we’re changing for sport, that there are girls at our school who are even flatter than me who wear proper bras. Basically, I’m the only girl I know who still just wears a cami top.

The thing about having a bra, which Mum doesn’t seem to get, is that they make the most of what you have – so really, the flatter you are, the more reason there is to get one. That’s what I think, at least. This girl Briana at our school was completely, totally flat and then she turned up one Monday morning with a proper rack. She must have got one of those padded bras – and she looked amazing.

So after months of waiting for Mum to say something, I had to bring the subject up with her. And when I did, she looked at me like I’d asked her to buy me an astronaut suit. ‘But you’re too young still,’ she said. I then pointed out that Carolyn had been wearing bras for an entire year by my age, and Mum had kind of laughed and said, ‘Okay, we’ll see.’ That was weeks ago. And right now it’s obvious Mum has totally forgotten the whole conversation. But this time I’m not going to let it go because I’m already picturing the look on Ethan’s face when I turn up at school tomorrow with my brand-new boobs. He’ll probably beg to get back with me again but I’ll make him wait for ages – at least until a day or two – before I say yes.

‘Please, Mum?’ I say, doing my biggest, saddest, most puppy-ish eyes.

It works. Mum puts her arm around me and says, ‘Let’s do it.’

We start heading towards the lingerie section of the mall’s department store. Everything’s going fine until Mum’s phone rings while we’re on the escalator. I know straight away that it’s Dad. My parents don’t even bother saying hi to each other anymore. These days they just pick up the argument where they left off.

‘Have you forgotten that the house is going on the market in two weeks?’ Mum says. ‘The painters are coming on Thursday, Steve. The rest of your stuff better be gone by then.’ She’s talking in this really loud voice, and I just know that the people in front of us on the escalator are listening to every word. It’s so embarrassing.

The thing is, Mum gets in such a flap whenever she starts talking about the house being sold and all the stuff that needs to be done before then, that everything else kind of fades away. I can see a simple solution: don’t sell it. But whenever I suggest this, Mum says that the house has too many associations for her. Associations with Dad, she means. Which is funny, because it’s the associations with Dad that make me not want it to be sold. Because that stuff only means something while it’s ours.

When someone else moves into our house, they won’t know that Dad laid the little blue-and-green tiles in the bathroom himself. They won’t know that the wattle tree in the backyard was a present I gave Dad two years ago, and that we planted it together. And they might paint over the pencil marks on the kitchen doorframe that Dad made to measure me and Carolyn as we grew.

‘Well, go over there now, then!’ Mum yells suddenly as we step off the bottom of the escalator. The people in front of us look around with their eyebrows raised, but Mum doesn’t even notice. Mum and Dad’s ‘conversations’ are getting louder and louder. If they keep going like this, soon they won’t need to use the phone at all – they’ll just be able to yell at each other across the city.

‘But you better make sure you’re not damn well there when I get there tomorrow afternoon.’ Except Mum doesn’t say damn well. She says a way worse word.

‘Well, really!’ the woman in front of us mutters.

To block it out, I start thinking about what kind of bra I’m going to buy. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot lately. I’ve been looking online and measuring myself weekly with a tape measure to make sure I know exactly what size to get. The other ‘research’ I’ve been doing is trying on Carolyn’s bras when she’s not around. She’s got heaps of nice ones but my favourite is a white satin one with silver sparkles. It was my dream bra for a long time. If I do it up on the smallest hooks and pull my shoulders way back, I can make it stay up.

But then I found an ad in a magazine for a bra that was even better than Carolyn’s sparkly one. The ad is divided into two. On one side there’s a girl walking through school with a smile on her face, her hair billowing back and her tight top showing off her amazing figure. There’s a group of students in the background staring at her admiringly (the boys) and jealously (the girls). On the other half of the ad, you see a close-up of the bra itself. It’s purple satin with tiny diamantés scattered across it like little stars. The cups are padded and there are arrows on the ad showing how this bra pushes your boobs up and makes the most of what you’ve got. Boost your profile with the Charm Bra says the ad at the bottom.

Mum is still on the phone to Dad when we get to the lingerie department, so I give her my pleading look again and she tells Dad that he’ll have to call back later.

‘Right,’ she says, putting the phone away. ‘Where do we start?’

At the moment we are surrounded by the most massive beige bras I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine anyone having breasts large enough to fill them. There’s one near me that’s so huge my whole head would fit in one of the cups.

Mum looks around. ‘We need to find an attendant,’ she says. I try to explain that we don’t need help because I already know what style and size I want. We just need to find the bras that aren’t big enough to live in and I’ll be fine. But as usual Mum isn’t listening. She spots a woman with a name badge and starts waving. ‘Excuse me!’ she calls loudly. ‘Can you come and measure my daughter for her first bra?’ I want to die. ‘Mum!’ I hiss. ‘I don’t need to be measured. I know all that already.’ But it’s too late by then – the woman is already coming over. She’s got grandmother-like short grey hair and there’s a tape measure draped around her neck. Looking at her, I suddenly realise who those massive bras are made for. It seems unfair – like this lady has been greedy and taken more than her share and left me with hardly anything.

She smiles at me. ‘So, it’s your first bra, dear? How exciting!’ She’s speaking just as loudly as Mum was.

I’m too mortified to do anything but nod. This is not how I imagined the shopping trip going.

‘Of course,’ says Mum, ‘she doesn’t really need one yet, but we thought we’d get one anyway.’

‘Oh, we’ll find one that fits,’ says the assistant. ‘I’ll just check what size we need.’

And before I really understand what’s happening, she’s whipped her tape measure off her neck and wrapped it around my chest, right across my nipples, and then again beneath my breasts. She does it so fast it’s like a magic trick.

‘We’ll start with an 8A, shall we?’ she announces, so that Mum (and probably the entire shop) can hear.

I shake my head. ‘No, I’ll need a B cup,’ I say. ‘At least.’ Carolyn wears a B and, seriously, it’s not that much too big for me. But the sales assistant and Mum both laugh like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.

‘We’ll see how we go, shall we, pet,’ says the assistant.

She leads us over to the teen section where I’m relieved to see that the bras look much more normal-sized. And I suddenly spot it. The Charm Bra. It’s even more perfect in real life than it looked in the ad.

Mum has walked on ahead with the assistant, so I call her and hold up the dream bra. ‘Mum!’ I say. ‘This is the one I want.’

Mum’s smile goes a little wonky then, like it’s trying to turn downwards but she’s forcing it to stay up. ‘That one?’ she says. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it awesome?’

Mum’s smile fades completely. ‘Honey, I don’t think it’ll fit you.’

But I know she’s wrong. ‘I’m going to try it on,’ I say, looking around for the change rooms. I can’t wait to see what my profile looks like.

‘Can I have a look at it?’ says Mum, walking back towards me. She examines it like it’s a particularly germy patient in the waiting room – one she doesn’t want to come too close. ‘It’s very … shiny,’ she says. When she spots the price tag, she sucks in her breath. ‘Outrageous!’ she murmurs, putting the bra back on the nearest rack. ‘So much money for something so tacky.’

I take it back off the rack. ‘Carolyn has bras like this,’ I point out.

‘Carolyn has a job,’ Mum shoots right back at me. ‘She buys her own bras.’ Mum sighs. ‘There’s no way I can afford this, Anya. I’m sorry.’ It’s that same sorry she used when I told her about breaking up with Ethan. The one that means she isn’t really sorry at all.

‘You wouldn’t buy it even if you could afford it, would you?’ I say. I know this sounds sulky – which Mum hates – but I can’t help it. I feel sulky.

‘No,’ agrees Mum. ‘I wouldn’t. It’s not appropriate for someone your age to be wearing a padded bra. Thirteenyear-olds should look like thirteen-year-olds, not twentyyear-olds.’

This is so frustrating! I want to point out that heaps of girls my age wear bras like this, but just then the sales assistant comes over.

‘How about these?’ she says, holding up two of the plainest bras I’ve ever seen in my life. One is pale grey and the other one is white. There’s not even the smallest amount of padding on either of them. No decoration. I feel myself dying of boredom just looking at them. There’s no way these bras will boost my profile at all.

But Mum nods and says, ‘Perfect.’

The attendant leads me over to the fitting rooms and then guards the door so I can’t escape.

It’s while I’m in there that I see something. Something a little scary. I noticed a while ago that my left breast is smaller than my right one. Like, noticeably smaller. But in the bright lights of the change room, I see something else that’s weird about leftie – there’s this blue vein running up the side of it, really close to the skin. I check the right one, but I can’t see a vein on that side. That seems wrong and I start thinking, Maybe the vein is somehow connected to the smallness? Maybe leftie will never grow any bigger? Maybe I’ve got some kind of disease?

I look at it for a minute, wondering if I should yell out to Mum. But then the shop attendant would probably come in too and I don’t want that. In fact, I don’t really want to think about the vein at all. I quickly get back into my clothes and get out of there.

‘You were supposed to call us when you had them on!’ says the attendant.

‘Sorry,’ I mutter.

‘So are we getting them or not?’ says my mum. ‘The shop is closing soon.’

‘I guess so,’ I say, handing them over. I figure ugly bras are better than no bras. Slightly better – in the way that having your foot amputated is slightly better than having your whole leg removed.

The attendant chats away to Mum while she does the sale – like this has all been a huge success.

Then she puts the bras in a bag and hands it over to me. ‘Cheer up, pet!’ she says. ‘It’s not that bad.’

Cheer up? I want to yell. Would you be cheerful if you’d just been dumped via text message? Would you be cheerful if you found a weird blue vein on your breast that probably means you’ve got some horrible disease? But I don’t say it because I don’t want to freak Mum out. Anyway, the attendant isn’t even looking at me. She’s staring at the bag, frowning.

‘I did take the security tag off, didn’t I?’ she says. ‘If you leave the shop with them still on, they make a terrible racket.’

Mum checks the bag. The tags are off, which is good. This day has been terrible enough without me setting off a bunch of alarms.

As we leave, I ask Mum where she’s taking me for dinner.

‘What do you mean, honey?’ she says.

I remind her that when she and Carolyn went bra shopping, they went out for lunch afterwards. Mum sighs and pushes her hair up from her forehead. Her fringe hovers for a moment before crashing like a wave back over her face.

‘Oh sweetie,’ she says. ‘Not tonight, okay? I’m so tired. We’ll go out another time, I promise.’

I don’t say anything. Not, You’re always tired, or, That’s so not fair, even though both those things are true. Because I know there’s nothing I can say that will change her mind.

We end up buying Thai and taking it back to the flat to eat in front of the television, like we do every night. Carolyn has just finished washing her hair when we get home and she’s sitting on the couch, combing it. She has completely straight hair and only has to blow-dry it, like Mum, while I inherited Dad’s crazy waves.

‘Where’ve you guys been?’ she asks. Mum makes me show her the bras we bought.

‘Oh, aren’t they cute!’ Carolyn says in this completely fake way of hers which only I ever notice.

‘They’re nice, aren’t they?’ says Mum.

Then Max calls and Carolyn takes her food into her room so she can talk to him while she eats. Because, you know, she hasn’t seen him for a couple of hours.

I don’t eat much dinner. Maybe it’s because the smell of the ginger in Mum’s laksa reminds me of Ethan’s favourite juice. Maybe it’s because I still haven’t got used to how big our sofa looks in this little room – like an ocean liner stuck in a duck pond. Or maybe it’s because I keep thinking about the vein, wondering what it means.

Mum falls asleep on the couch as usual, so I take the containers out to the kitchen and then go to my room.

I lie on my bed for a while, looking through my phone at all the messages Ethan and I have exchanged over the last twenty-eight days. I look at that last one he sent me over and over, trying to think of a reply. Usually my problem is trying to stop texting. But right now, when it really matters, I can’t think of a thing to say.