I tried too many times to get truth out of a lie

Everything is so soft in her house. From her mother wrapped in a dressing gown telling us to raid the cupboards if we get hungry to her brother and his girlfriend making eggs to the shivering blanketed mass that is her boyfriend who appeared at 3am very drunk and collapsed in her bed after staring at me and muttering "Is she sleeping with us?" There's a different mindset required to stay there. Conversations run with ooing and ahhhing. Isn't it shiny and pretty and lovely. The minute the boyfriend stumbles in something inside me snaps back and I'm sarky again. He can't handle my rum, tells me it's awful and far too dark and won't I be hungover. I smile sweetly and tell him a hangover for me is waking up at 5 in the morning and going OW. Then I tell him he isn't a real man if rum makes him gag. I was sitting there slagging him off and all the things Joe said to me earlier float in my head but I ignore him. This boy deserves to suffer my sarcasm. He still has a video of me and his girlfriend on his phone that I foolishly thought might have been lost. Plus he's skinny. I do not trust a man with no ass.

She switches to maternal mode and leads him upstairs after he fell into my breasts and started giggling. She wraps me in cold arms and murmurs "night gorgeous" in my hair and fwump I fall to the bed and dream of losing teeth. A mouthful of rum helps warm me up in the morning and I sit there with a bad taste in my mouth and watch this soft family and I want away. I have nothing to say; other than yes, Firefly is freakin awesome.

The snow is gone and as I trundle down the hill the airiness is left behind. Home Julie shouts MALCEMOO, it's the evil alchemoo (she was watching Full Metal Alchemist) and Mum calls me a wuss and pretends to punch me. Things are solid here, safe and a little crazy. My pretty top litters the floor. I couldn't wear a bra with it for I can't be bothered buying a strapless one so I had to spend all night checking I was still in place. But when I'd walked up the hill last night in the cold air under the stars and the trees that blocked out the traffic and Glasgow twinkled below me in an orangey haze, I was glad of my floaty top and chunky boots. I'm not sure who I was last night but she felt unusually pretty.

Catherine is who is here now, bleary eyed and sober with Amy Acker on her chest, a candy cane in her mouth and football on the telly. There's a letter from my aunt in Kansas. Mum shows me the pictures of my cousins I'll probably never see now. The oldest is getting married to a generic man with boring facial hair and the youngest who is my age is pregnant. The photo shows her pretty face leaning into a far too young looking boy and the letter tells us the baby is due in April and is a boy and they've already named him but I can't make out her writing. I burst into tears as my aunt talks about how happy my cousin is knowing that we still love her. I don't even know who I'm crying for and I'm surprised it's affected me like this. I mean, I'm a sap. I cry at sad books, good books, great films and beautiful songs but not so much real life these days.

When I shake this sadness off I'm going to finish all my half stories and do an edit of my first chapter. I've got too much I want this girl to do for her to lie in that bath forever.