When Alice’s mum has gone, Luke sits in the chair, but it feels sad and wrong and awkward, so he gets up again and perches on the side of the bed.
‘Alice?’ he says. ‘Can you hear me? I think you can. It’s weird, because you’re so still … so frozen. It’s like you’re miles and miles away, somewhere else completely; are you dreaming? Are you scared?’
He is hoping for some kind of reaction, but there is none.
‘Look, Alice, I don’t know what happened at the sleepover,’ he says. ‘I am pretty sure it was just an accident, but I wish I hadn’t left you there. We should have run away, like I said. I mean, it was just a joke, really, because I wanted to be alone with you so we could talk. I hated all those fake party games, everyone trying way too hard to be cool and grown up – and I think you hated it too. I’m pretty certain of that.
‘Lainey says you fell on the stairs in the middle of the night, that you had your coat and shoes on. I just can’t help thinking that something went wrong to make you want to get out of there. I wish you could tell me. Everyone is so worried, Alice; the girls are really freaking out. Lainey is seriously not coping; she’s ringing and texting me all day and all night, and it’s kind of doing my head in.’
He sighs.
‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that we miss you,’ he says. ‘Your friends miss you. I miss you. It feels like I’ve only just found you and now I’ve lost you all over again. If you’re listening, Alice, I want you to come back soon. Please?’
Luke looks towards the corridor, in case the nurses are watching, but nobody is there at all. He leans over and kisses Alice’s ear, traces a finger softly along the crescent-shaped scar that slices through her cheek. Her skin is cold to the touch, as if she is made of ice and snow instead of flesh and blood.
He picks up the iPod with his special playlist, his eyes blurred with tears.
‘Alice, I don’t know what to say exactly; I don’t know how to get through to you, so I’m going to let the songs say it for me. I’m going to believe that you can hear this, and that you’ll wake up soon, because … because you just have to, Alice. OK?’