"Alice!" I called when I got back to her house. "I'm back!"

There was the sound of footsteps down the stairs, and Alice appeared in the kitchen. "Hey, you're back earlier than I thought you would be. Where's Joseph?"

"Oh, he had to stay in town. I just got the bus back." I shrugged. "Feeling better?"

"A bit, I guess. I managed to eat some bread, so that's a good thing." She groaned. "God, I can barely even remember why I even got so drunk."

"Yeah, why did you?" I questioned curiously. "Something about Dylan?"

Alice shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah. He... uh, he tried to kiss me."

"He what?" I blurted, my eyebrows raised.

Alice winced. "Yeah. I obviously said no, and then he got all annoyed and kindly reminded me of how he never loved me, and was just using me."

"I'm going to murder him," I muttered. "I can't believe he said that. You okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine." She waved a hand dismissively. "I only took that to heart because I was already drunk, and I'm an emotional drunk. Now, I don't really care."

"Well, good." I couldn't believe Dylan. What kind of person would do that?

"Ana," Alice stated, looking at me furtively, "You're not going to go and talk to Dylan about this, are you?"

My anger deflated when I saw the worry in her eyes. "Not if you don't want me to."

"I don't. I really appreciate your... murder tendencies towards Dylan, but I think it's better to just leave it." Alice smiled at me. "Anyway. How did Melissa's go? You talk to them about a job?"

"Oh. Yeah, I talked to the manager, and he offered me one, and I took it. I'm going to work, like, four days a week for the rest of the holidays, and when we go back to school, I'll work at the weekends."

"That sounds great!" she said, a wide grin on her face. "That means you can give me stuff for free, right?"

I smiled slightly. "Probably. It'll be fun. And sociable. You have to come visit me."

"Trust me, I will be there the whole time."

I hadn't actually told Alice the real reason I was getting this job – to help me get a flat when I was eighteen. To be true to myself, I didn't even need the job. My parents had left me enough money to afford a decent one bedroom apartment, but I needed something to do, and it was good to earn money of my own.

Alice spent most of the rest of the day in bed, while I lounged around downstairs, chatting to Ellie on the phone or blitzing through a TV series. Catherine had gone to visit a friend in town, and Joseph never reappeared.

Throughout the day, a memory was niggling at my mind, and it took me a while to recall what that memory was. I was only reminded of it when I glanced at the vase of flowers on the kitchen table. Lily. Joseph had called me Lily when we'd been out for breakfast. I swear to God, Lily, I will kill you here and now. Those were his precise words. Not the nicest of words, but for some reason, the fact that he had called me Lily was clinging on to my mind. No one had called me Lily for a while.

Catherine and Mark returned in the evening, and we – including Alice – all ate supper together, though about halfway through her meal, Alice was starting to look a little ill. She held it together, but after the meal, she excused herself to go to bed.

Catherine and Mark merely laughed at her lack of subtlety. They stayed up with me for a bit, finishing their wine and chatting. It seemed strange to me that they didn't seem to worry about where Joseph was, but when I voiced this, they looked completely unconcerned.

"Oh, Joseph's always back late. His excuses are seeing friends, going for a late night jog, but we suspect he has a secret girlfriend," Catherine said knowingly, and I laughed politely. When they both bid me goodnight and went to bed, I stayed up. I didn't know if I was waiting for Joseph or something, but I just wasn't tired, and the thought of sleep wasn't appealing to me. Instead I sat on the sofa, flicking between tv shows and playing around on my phone.

It was past eleven-thirty when the key clicked in the front door and Joseph appeared, looking a little dishevelled. He clearly hadn't noticed me, since he jumped a little when I said, "So, back from seeing your secret girlfriend?"

Once he'd got over his initial shock of me sitting there in the dark, Joseph looked totally confused. "What?"

"That's what your parents think," I said, one corner of my mouth tilted up in a half-smile. "That you have a secret girlfriend that you don't tell them about, and that's why you always come home late."

Joseph just shook his head and traipsed over to the sofa before collapsing next to me and rubbing his face with his hands. For a second I'd forgotten that the last time we saw each other, we'd argued, but now it was coming back to me. I was about to apologise when Joseph interrupted me.

"Guess I should say sorry," he said reluctantly, turning to look at me. "For earlier."

I pretended that I hadn't been about to apologise, and crossed my arms. "Guess you should. The hell was that?"

"Don't ask me, I don't know," Joseph grumbled, leaning back and closing his eyes. "I guess I just... no one really knows about my whole art thing, and then I told you, and I kind of wanted to take it back, or something. I'm not very good at being open with people."

"Yeah, no shit," I said, raising an eyebrow.

Joseph glanced at me and rolled his eyes. "Whatever. What are you still doing up, anyway?"

I shrugged. "I don't really know. I just don't feel like sleeping right now. Plus..." I was about to say that I was also waiting up for him, but I wasn't sure how he'd react to that. But as I studied him, I thought to myself, screw it. "I was also kind of waiting up for you."

Joseph looked at me sharply. "Why?"

I shrugged again. "Well, your parents didn't seem to care where you were, Alice went to bed, I thought someone should maybe check you're still alive."

Joseph carried on watching me, but instead of looking away, I met his eyes. Neither of us said anything for a long time, but because I'm not good with silence, I quickly said, "Where were you, anyway?"

"I never actually lie to my parents about where I am in the evenings," he admitted, looking away and down at his hands. "I love the town in the evening. I prefer being there to home, so that's why I come back so late."

"Why don't you like being at home?" I asked softly, not wanting to overstep my boundaries. But it seemed I already had, as I could see in Joseph's eyes that the gates were closing, he was shutting me out.

"I just don't," he said irritably.

I pointed my finger at him. "You're doing it again. Sharing information about yourself and then getting angry with the other person."

"I know, I know," Joseph snapped. "I can't help it."

When he didn't continue, I sighed and got up. I wasn't going to bed, though, I just needed something to fill the quiet, and so I switched the radio on before sitting back down on the sofa. I listened to the song that was playing for a moment, only I suddenly froze as I realised what song it was. It was 'All Of Me', and it was my mum's favourite song.

I bit my lip, hard, and hugged my knees into my chest. The song started to fill my head, bringing up memories and feelings I'd suppressed for so long. My mum buying me a diary. My dad trying to beat me on our runs together. All of us on a boat together, the wind threatening to tip us into the sea. Mum wiping my tears when I fell out with my friends, my dad sneaking me a glass of wine when I was younger at family gatherings. All the past memories were hitting me, there and then, like a flood of water breaking down a dam. This was not happening now; it couldn't. I wouldn't let it. But you can't control these kinds of things.

"Lily? Are you okay?" Joseph suddenly said, seeming to notice my facial expression and the way I was sitting.

"Mm-hm," I whispered, but the truth was, I was definitely not. Because my eyes, which had been dry for nearly three weeks, were filling with tears, and the tears were threatening to spill over at any moment. So many memories were flashing through my mind. The police, coming to my door, telling me the bad news. The numbness I'd been feeling. The funeral. The speech. Seeing the caskets being lowered into the ground. My parents, dead.

"Lily," Joseph repeated, moving a bit closer to me. "What– what's wrong–"

"I have to turn it off," I mumbled, getting up, but not walking over to the radio. Joseph stood up too.

"Turn what off?"

"The song, the song, I have to turn off the song," I said, my voice getting louder. I finally got my feet to move towards the radio, and Joseph followed me. Like a blind person, I clumsily tried to turn the song off, but I couldn't, it wouldn't stop. "Make it– make it stop–" The radio fell to the floor with a crash, and I let the tears fall along with it. I put my hands over my face as I started to sob.

"Lily!" Joseph said in alarm, placing his hands on my shoulders and spinning me round to face him. "Please tell me what's going on!"

"I can't, I can't," I whimpered, putting my hands over my face and squeezing my eyes shut, trying to block anything and everything out. But I couldn't. It was flooding in, the realisation that I had no parents. I wouldn't talk to them, hear them, feel them ever again. And that caused me to be in so much agony that I just wanted everything to stop.

I felt Joseph's hand tentatively touch my shoulder, and suddenly his arms were around me, and my face was pressed against his chest where I could hear his heart beating loudly and solidly. We stayed like that for a while, until I managed to calm down enough to be able to actually even breathe. I exhaled shakily, and whispered, mainly to myself, "Why did they leave me?"

Joseph didn't answer but tightened his arms around me, his chin resting on top of my head. Although I'd stopped crying, I was suddenly heartbroken, and I felt a sort of emptiness. Hollow. Aching. And it hurt, so, so much.

"Lily," Joseph finally said, pulling back slightly so he could look at me. "What triggered it?"

By 'it' I knew he meant my sudden recognition of the fact my parents were dead. Oh god, they were gone. I swallowed, holding back another round of tears before saying in a trembling voice, "The song. It was my mum's–" My words got stuck in my throat, and I put my hands over my face, trying to calm down. "It was her favourite," I whispered.

"Shit, I'm sorry," he murmured, his hands still on my shoulders. His eyes met mine and he dropped his hands, stepping away. "Listen, things are gonna really suck for a while. It's all flooded in at once, and it's going to seem endless. But it's not."

I let out a shaky breath and wiped my cheeks. When I looked at Joseph, his mind seemed to be some place else. Like he was drawing on his own experience. "I don't think I can do this. Get through it."

"You will," he said firmly. "But it's not about getting through it, Lily. There's no 'other side'. I know it seems hopeless. But you'll learn to deal with it. To cope. You don't suddenly stop missing them, you just... grow around it. Okay?"

"Since when were you a therapist," I mumbled, wrapping my arms around myself.

"I'm not." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "For now, you should really get some sleep at least. You might feel a little better tomorrow."

I stared at him, but he wouldn't meet my eyes. "I – I don't think sleep is going to make this go away, Joseph." When he didn't say anything, I carried on unsteadily, "I can't sleep. Do you know what's going to happen if I go up to my room, close my eyes, and try to sleep? I'm going to think of them. And I just..." I put my hand to my mouth, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath to stay calm. I opened my eyes again to look at Joseph and whispered, "I can't do that."

"I know," he said finally. "I get it."

"Do you?" I challenged, starting to feel some anger rising up. "Are you sure? Because if you did, you wouldn't be telling me, 'go get some sleep', or 'you'll feel better tomorrow' because I can promise you, I won't feel better tomorrow."

"Trust me, Liliana, I do get it. In some ways." He fixed a stony gaze on me.

"So what do I do, then?" I snapped. "How do I grow around this? How do I 'cope'? Because I have no clue where to start."

Joseph just looked away. "Like I said, I'm not a therapist. I can't help you. You have to figure this out yourself."

His voice had gone flat. He was putting up the walls again. Well, fine. If he could do that, so could I. "Fine, Joseph. Thanks a lot." I turned and swiftly but quietly strode up the stairs, barely making it into my room before the sobs started again. I covered my face with my pillow to muffle my crying, just lying there, waiting for it to stop. When it did, I took a deep breath and reached for my phone. I scrolled through my contacts until I found the one I was looking for, and with a trembling finger, pressed ring. I knew mum's phone hadn't been disconnected yet. I needed to hear her voice.

"Hi, you've reached Nicole's phone. Sorry I can't get to the phone right now, but leave me a message after the beep and I'll call you as soon as I can." Beep.

"Mum?" I whispered. I hadn't said those words in what felt like forever. "I... I don't even know why I'm calling this number. I just... I really miss you, mum. I'm so empty, I can't think about the fact that you're gone for more than a second or I'm going to break down. But you are gone, you and dad. You've left me here, and I just feel like I'm never, ever going to stop crying." I wiped a stray tear from my cheek. "How could you do that to me? I have no one. No one, mum. No one gets it. No one understands this pain. And it hurts, it hurts so much." I grasped my phone more tightly in my hand before taking it away from my ear and hanging up. Why did I do that? It just made me feel worse, so much worse. I took a shaky breath, rubbing my face and running a hand through my hair. I had to calm down. What I needed was a distraction.

I thought back to mine and Joseph's conversation. He'd told me that he understood. If he understood, he must have been through some kind of pain like mine. He also told me that he didn't sleep. What did he do instead? Art. I myself wasn't good with a pen – at least for drawing, but I'd always loved to write. When I was really young, I used to write short stories and mum used to send them to this place to get them 'published'. As I got older, I stopped writing stories, and changed to writing song lyrics. I never had any singing lessons or anything, but for my fourteenth birthday, dad bought me a guitar and taught me how to play it. I used to put on little performances for my parents, and they used to smile and clap and tell me I was great. Although I'd brought the guitar to Alice's house, I'd stuffed it into a corner where I couldn't see it. I didn't want to see it, it reminded me far too much of my parents. And I still couldn't face it yet. But maybe I could face song writing.

So, I got out a pen and paper, and I poured out everything inside of me, not falling asleep until the early hours of the morning.