Claudia was already asleep when Zoe flung her door open.

‘Claudie! Claudia!’ she shout-whispered. She took two steps in and saw the lump that was her sister underneath the doona, even her head obscured. She put her hand on the lump and shook it. ‘Claudia! You need to wake up.’

Claudia groaned and rustled under the doona, revealing her face but still refusing to open her eyes.

‘Claudia, it’s Nora.’

Claudia sat bolt upright. ‘Nora? What?’

Zoe held up her phone. ‘Dylan just rang. Nora is really sick at the restaurant; the others had gone home and he found her vomiting near some bushes.’

‘She what?’

‘Don’t tell anyone but . . . her and Tom broke up.’

‘Wait, what? Nora is throwing up and Tom and her broke up?’

‘She didn’t want you to find out during this week but her and Tom broke up just before she came here. Don’t tell her I told you that, though – nobody is supposed to know.’

Claudia stood up and grabbed a pair of shorts to put on under her makeshift pyjama top. She pulled her phone from the charger and was greeted with a blank screen, no notifications. She wondered why Nora hadn’t tried to call for help.

She did not wonder why Dylan had called Zoe.

Shoving her feet into her Nikes, she grabbed Zoe’s arms to steady herself and then stood up properly to meet her eye. Something was not right. She felt the mechanics of an emotional demotion as she grasped the meaning of it being Zoe who had burst into her room and not her ringtone direct from the scene.

‘Why did Nora tell you about the break-up and not me?’

Zoe shrugged Claudia’s hand off her in irritation. ‘Let’s stick to things that actually matter.’

The sisters didn’t bother to put up a pretence of quietness as they rushed out of the house. Rachel would not be waking up for a while, and neither of them cared if Poppy was disturbed. In fact, it would have given them both an ounce of pleasure to disturb her.

Zoe drove as Claudia texted Dylan to say they were on their way and to ask for a condition update.

‘Still breathing. Still vomiting,’ came the reply.

As Zoe pulled into the restaurant’s street she could see Dylan’s shoulders outlined by a streetlight as he bent over, seemingly to pat a petrified dog. Zoe swung the car to the left and then reversed back so they were parked next to the two figures. As Claudia got out of the car she could hear Dylan muttering in soothing tones.

‘You’re okay, it’s okay, nobody thinks anything.’

His sentences were punctuated by sobs as Nora, on all fours, heaved her shoulders back and retched. Claudia kneeled down beside her and started rubbing her back as she looked up at Dylan, who eased his hand from between her shoulders where he had been patting her.

‘She’s pretty sick,’ he finally said.

Claudia instinctively leaned over and kissed Nora above her ear. ‘It’s okay, I’m here.’

Nora sobbed again. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘Can’t do what?’

Dylan answered for her. ‘She’s been saying that for half an hour; I think she means she can’t keep feeling this sick.’

‘Jesus,’ Zoe interjected. ‘She hasn’t stopped vomiting for half an hour? How long was she out here before you found her?’

Nora’s gold dress had ridden up at the back, revealing her tummy-tightening underwear, and her hair was matted with vomit. Zoe pulled a hair tie from her own head and clumsily gathered Nora’s hair in her hands, pulling it back from her face to secure it. Dylan crouched on his haunches. ‘We left pretty soon after you guys had gone. Dad picked up the bill. I think Nora was there at the end; she knocked over a full glass of champagne and then asked for another one.’ He hesitated and looked at Nora with pity. ‘They wouldn’t let her have one.’

Nora heaved again but this time nothing came up and she simply spat. Claudia kept rubbing her back while Zoe tried to objectively assess the situation. ‘I don’t think we need to take her to the hospital.’

Claudia snorted. ‘This is the second time tonight we are considering such action.’

Dylan looked confused but Zoe ignored both of them.

‘She’s still conscious, the vomiting seems to have slowed, I think we can get her to bed, and if she can keep down water then she can just recover at the hotel.’

Nora attempted to contribute to the plan but could only muster another sob. Claudia leaned forward to look her in the face. Nora’s lipstick was smudged across her lips and her eyeliner had almost been wiped away, leaving black splotches from her cheeks to her hairline. She met Claudia’s gaze and closed her eyes before hanging her head, conceding that the effort was just too great to keep it upright. Claudia put her lips to her ear again.

‘It’s okay, I’ll look after you.’

*

True to her word it was Claudia who stayed in the hotel room with Nora. Dylan was out of the question, and the embarrassment at waking up to Zoe in her space would’ve been too traumatic for Nora. After Dylan and Zoe had helped her to get Nora into the room and left, Claudia had spent minutes that felt like days tugging at the tight dress, coaxing Nora to keep her arms over her head as she eased it off. She put Nora under the shower and filled up a glass of water for her to drink out of while she sat on the floor, unable even to stand while trying to wash away the night.

Claudia turned off the water and gathered Nora in a towel, helping her to the bed without bothering to find new underwear or a nightgown. Once she was lying down, Claudia pulled up the blanket and sat on the floor to keep watch over her friend. Nora opened her eyes.

‘I told Dylan,’ she whispered, her throat hoarse and raw from the evening’s turn of events.

‘Told Dylan what?’

Nora groaned. ‘Tinder.’

Then she rolled over and softly began to snore.

‘Jesus Christ, between this and telling Zoe about Tom, it’s a confidentiality spree,’ she said, more to herself than her semi-unconscious friend. Then the panic started to rise. Dylan knew about Tinder. What exactly did he know about Tinder? Just that she’d downloaded it? She had left her phone next to him all night.

Nora would not only be wrought with the hangover of nausea and aches in the morning, she was definitely heading for The Fear. The physical hangover is small time compared to The Fear, a cringe-fest of emotional paralysis as all the actions from the night before are slowly recalled.

Claudia already knew this was not the end of the friendship but the thought would surely be with Nora once she sobered up. If Claudia was going to rage at anyone, it was going to have to be herself. She’d had a lifetime of lessons in forgiving and not-quite-forgetting, courtesy of her sisters.