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limb.
    “Cow,” said Mia calmly, examining her nails. “And marriage can be wonderful. Nothing wrong with marriage.”
    “WHAAT?” Mum and I chorused. This was a changed tune from the weeping, screeching banshee who just a few short days ago was pronouncing doom on the head of Vicky the Goth, while she batted my hands away from the bottle of cheap gin she was hogging.
    “What do you mean, ‘what’?” she asked, lightly as you please, sipping her Lambrusco sedately. I noted that she wasn’t bolting it down as quickly as I’d expected. “Marriage is great.”
    We stared at her, open-mouthed. “Oh, don’t act so shocked. It’s not as if I ever said it was all Luke’s fault.”
    We clamoured to correct her, but she waved her hand in our faces distractedly. “Oh, alright, maybe I did.” Another demure sip. “But I take at least partial responsibility. I mean, if I’d been a little gentler with him, not expected him to be perfect, things would never have gotten to that point.”
    Mum and I were reeling by this stage.
    “So does this mean—a-are you going to—to take him back?” Mum asked, having managed to locate her voice.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mia scoffed. “He’s cheating scum.”
    “Oh,” we both exhaled, relieved. We were back on familiar ground now. And after the Lambrusco was finished, Mia comforted us further by hitting the gin just as hard as before. “If thersh one thing I can tell you, Aves,” she slurred while we were watching a repeat of that stupid celebrity ballroom-dancing show a few hours later, “itsh that you’ve got to take people ash they are. Y’know?”
    “Mmm,” I replied, annoyed that she’d talked over the judges’ comments.
    “And not ecshpect too much. Y’know? Compassion an’ that.” She took a deep swig of her mostly-gin-and-a-tiny-bit-of-tonic. “You lishtenin’ t’me?”
    “Mmm,” I said again, not really meaning it.
    “Good,” she said, setting her glass aside with a look of grim urgency on her face. She took hold of my shoulders and turned me to look at her. “Ava, you’ve got to promish me somethin’.”
    “’Kay.” I could still see the screen from the corner of my eye, so I wasn’t bothered.
    “AVA!” she barked suddenly.
    “What?” I barked back. I hated her drink-induced fits of philosophy, and Lord knew I’d been subjected to a surfeit of them over those preceding months.
    “You’ve got to promish me you— oh fuck, I feel sick— promish me you won’t turn out like me.” She started blubbering in that messy alcoholic way that I’d become so familiar with. Oh dear, I thought, exasperated. “Not—all alone. You’ve got to love. You’ve got to love !”
    “OK,” I said, feeling embarrassed for her. Poor Mia. Once she’d been so strong, so in control, and now she was just a mess. I helped her to the downstairs loo, tied her beautiful blonde hair back for her, and leaned against the closed door while she was sick.
    While I helped her upstairs, it struck me how easily her life had fallen apart; a house of cards, and one little butterfly just came along and destroyed it all with a single beat of its wing.
    I fervently hoped that now that my little butterfly had come along, it would change things for the better, not for the worse.

Chapter 5
    The next morning, I didn’t so much as commute as waltz to my new place of employment. Being mildly hungover helped; my nerves were under control. I decided on some power words to help me along should I hit some bumps: competent; intelligent; ready for anything.
    I repeated them to myself on the bus ride there. It wasn’t too many stops from Ickenham; I’d long ago become an initiated master in planning extended bus commutes. The overwhelming sense I’d had before—that life was going to work out for me—was even stronger. I closed my eyes and smiled, and the thin light of the morning sun rippled through the trees and danced on the surface of my eyelids.
    Competent;