You tell yourself no, no you can’t do this to yourself again but god, the slight rise at the end of the question you’re greeted with (what’s wrong, babe?) and you’ll do anything to take that confusion away because that’s just what you do.

You fix things and do everything you can to make it better.

When you can’t fix something, when you have to leave it because it’s beyond fixing and you’ve got no strength left to try and pretend that it’s okay so you just leave it.

You leave it and pray to God that it isn’t a stupid decision to go out and leave it here and hope like you’ve never hoped before that you don’t have to come home. You don’t want to come home because it means everything will go back to how it was. How it is, because she’s trying to pretend nothing’s happened and he’s trying to move on because it’s about fucking time he did something to change things and everything’s going to shit and you wish, you wish so fucking much that something’ll happen and you won’t have to come home to it.

You’ll go to your room and find the top you bought the weekend before and you’ll drag on your tights because they fit looser now than they ever have before and borrow her cowboy boots and cover your face in makeup that somehow makes it a little better because they won’t know just how quickly you’re falling apart.

You’ll line your eyes and powder your face and gloss your lips and there, perfect and normal and just what they’ll want to see with a smile that someone once said lights up a room and eyes that tell secrets. Ones that no one understands because you’re trying to push them away so they can’t drag your heart out of your chest like the Egyptians used to drag the brain out of peoples’ noses before mummification.

You kind of wish they could see you now.

The thought makes you retch and you wish you had something in your stomach to bring up because you think the burning might make it a little easier to bear.

You’ll put your purse in your bag and make sure you have your keys and convince her, with her goddamn big bright eyes that try and see right through you because they think they’re entitled to it when they haven’t been, not for a long time, that you’re not about to break down sobbing on the front step.

The front step where the fence has disappeared and you only noticed when nothing was there to break your fall earlier and it is most certainly a sensible decision to let you go with Mahalia and Craig and Abby because if she doesn’t you might just sit and cry about the fence.

You’ll leave with a cheery goodbye, pretending it’s because of the awkwardness because Jake’s just raised his eyebrows at Mahalia’s headband and dress and ankle boots and she’s blushed and you can practically see the tension and you really really really wish it would just explode and maybe take you with it.

It doesn’t matter if they believe you or not because they won’t say anything, they never do.

Your face is on and your smile is on and your eyes are telling none of your goddamn secrets tonight because it isn’t their place and you don’t want to think about them because it is just all too much.

The car is practically vibrating with the music and your Piano Man and his Viking are rambling as they do and you melt back in the seat and then lean forward and around, sing loudly along with the music while you pretend that you don’t know Mahalia’s looking at you like you’re about to break because you’re not going to break, isn’t that what this is all about?

This is about going there and not breaking and you’re distracted pretty quickly by the streetlights and you wish Mahalia took the backstreets because they’re so much prettier than the main road.

You laugh and giggle and whisper with them when you pull into the parking lot and Donna’s shouting at someone and it’s so her that you’re the closest to laughing you’ve been since you found out Hope said she’d sleep with Jake if it was all really true.

Mahalia stumbles down the ramp because she always wears shoes that are too high and she’s so tall that you’re torn between ducking away in your cowboy boots, holding your drink like it’s someone’s heart and staying there so she falls into you instead of on the floor.

You stay at her side because that’s just the kind of thing you do and you don’t think your heart could handle a hospital trip. Not tonight.

You wish Tom wasn’t so unreliable and you wish your Sam was still here and you wish that you could maybe be somewhere anywhere but here. It passes, though, like everything else and there’s that comforting kind of burn that’s there in every first swallow of a new drink.

The fact you know that makes you wonder if where losing Sam didn’t quite turn you alcoholic, this might. You nearly throw the drink away or give it to Abby but then you see them just after you remember she’s driving home and your grip tightens and you really don’t care that it might shatter in your hand because the hospital is looking better, heart be damned.

It really is damned.

It was damned at your sixteenth when he was all bashful because he confused your card with his grandma’s and put them in the wrong envelopes and you open it as a ten dollar note falls into your hands and he’s giving you a bottle of homebrand lemon soft drink and it was damned when there were only four words in the confused card.

It was damned when he told you that you looked lovely and it was even more damned when that piece of ice hit your lips a few hours later and you wondered why the shiver was so much worse when it came around the circle that way where he was before you.

It was damned when you realised he’d rather Kayla because it’s always someone else and it bounces back convincingly because it always happens like that and one more time won’t make a difference.

It was damned with Sarah and it was damned with Mahalia and it was damned with Kerry and another Kayla and Tahnee and Mahalia again and some little bit of you wishes it wouldn’t bounce back because maybe then it wouldn’t be damned again.

You know that’s not how it works but you’ve never been the most rational of people.

It takes a while to realise that you’re talking like nothing’s wrong but damn him because you can see in his eyes that he knows it and Mahalia’s taking him for a walk because his eyes found her straight away as they always do.

You wonder if it’s being selfish to wonder if she’s telling him and then you realise you have to derail that train before it gets enough steam and never stops going. A half a glass in two swallows does it’s bit and then there’s a moment and Craig’s dragging you to the bar, happily ordering himself a Fruit Tingle and laughing at you when you steal a mouthful and tell the bartender to get you the same.

It’s purple and you really don’t care.

You stretch your neck and spontaneously feel like clicking your heels together three times because you wore a Dorothy dress once, even though you were supposed to be Alice and it would be amusing to see a house suddenly crash through the glass roof but wait, you’ve got that wrong and the three clicks is supposed to take you home.

You keep your heels strictly apart for the rest of the night.

A long drink a couple of hours later and a wave from someone you recognise vaguely and you’re happily ignoring the rest of them and trooping up the ramp and smiling nicely at the face you think is Michael and chatting for a while and then hearing another voice call your name.

You walk after Michael’s friends come back and you very nearly fall down the ramp again and they’re back by the mechanical bull, laughing and smiling and drinking and Craig’s bristling because Larissa’s there and Mahalia’s looking at you questioningly and you smile reassuringly and get yourself another drink and everything is all okay.

It always is, even when you get ready to leave some time later and his eyes are still on her, just like everyone and always and you’ve had enough of hoping it’ll ever be any different because time has proven that.

You unlock the door and wave and go straight to the back and sit down because Albie comes immediately and curls at your feet and he doesn’t need anything you can’t give and gives you everything he has because he doesn’t know any different.

You wish you didn’t know any different and you fancy that there were little pieces of your heart in the shot glasses at the bar when you left and accepted for the thousandth time that it was damned.

You know the thousandth and first time is coming and you wish you don’t come home from that one too.