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stupid mistake. I wanted to live my life without having made it. I wanted to have my life back.
    I didn’t want to remember, but details, details, detailskept flinging themselves at me, chasing me, cornering me, and I knew they were about to catch me.
    Why couldn’t Big Tits just have written up a script?
    ‘She’ll be back,’ Dan said, and it was a funny thing, because it was his new car that was blocking in mine. It was a sign, I was sure, that we were meant to be together perhaps, or, given how he’d parked, that he takes up all of the bed.
    He gave me a cuddle as Roz waited.
    I could hear the steady thud-thud-thud of his heart as mine leapt up to my throat and I wanted him to come home and lie down beside me.
    ‘Love you lots,’ he said to me.
    ‘Love you lots too.’
    It’s our little thing.
    ‘It’s good she’s gone to see him,’ Dan added. ‘She might finally work out he’s a complete wanker.’
    And I laughed, got into my car and I chatted to Roz.
    Put my ticket in the machine and the boom gate went up and Roz and I headed for home, and Nicole wouldn’t be there.
    Only it’s wasn’t Nicole that was upsetting me.
    Somehow I knew that.
    I didn’t want to think about it.
    We stopped at the drive-through bottle shop on the way.
    ‘Are you okay, Alice?’ Roz checked when we got back to the flat.
    ‘I’m fine,’ I said, because I was pouring a nice glass of red, and I would be in a moment.
    ‘I know you’re upset about Nic going, but is theresomething else?’ Roz pushed. ‘Is there something on your mind?’
    ‘Nothing,’ I said, because I didn’t want it on my mind. I didn’t want to think about it.
    Just, lately, it was all I seemed to do.

Six
    As you can imagine, as I sat there in the kitchen, having my split ends trimmed and trying to block out Bonny’s moaning, another hour with Gus was such a nice thing to think of. So much so that as the hairdresser gave me a ‘little trim to tidy things up’, I wasn’t concentrating—instead I was having a lovely thought about Gus leaving miserable Celeste, and me and him setting up and playing piano and…
    ‘What the…?’ She’d given me a fringe… Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad if you don’t have curly hair, but if you do have really curly hair, you will know this was a crisis.
    ‘I’ve left plenty of length,’ the hairdresser was saying, but I could sort of hear the wobble of panic in her voice, because even if she had cut it to the bridge of my nose, as she tried to drag the wet curls down with her finger, they were already coiling up into knots in my hairline.
    ‘It will be fine.’ Mum was reassuring.
    ‘With lots of product.’ The hairdresser was plastering on serum to weigh the curls down. I was crying, notjust at the prospect of the wedding but seeing Gus, and, worse, Bonny was screaming, completely hysterical.
    ‘Look at it!’ She was staring at my hair in horror. It was like the day the nit nurse at school found nits in my hair and I could feel everyone staring at me in disgust. I sat there humiliated as Bonny screeched out what a shit bridesmaid I’d make, what a mess I looked, how I’d ruin the photos.
    For months I’d put up with her histrionics. For months I’d shut up and put up and been good…
    ‘I don’t want to be your bridesmaid.’ I didn’t.
    ‘I don’t want to wear that disgusting pink dress.’ That was certainly true.
    ‘And you don’t have to worry about people talking about your ugly bridesmaid.’ I ripped off the towel from my shoulders. I was so angry, so ashamed, so embarrassed that I couldn’t even cry. ‘They’ll be too busy looking at the back end of the bride and sniggering at her massive arse. I thought brides were supposed to lose weight before the wedding.’
    Mum slapped me.
    We’re not talking a little slap either, she slammed her hand across my cheek, and Bonny’s screams quadrupled—not, may I add, because her sister was being beaten (well, maybe not beaten, but it