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idiot!’
    Her disgusted face is the last thing I remember.

11

    I ’m deep in the forest, near where I used to live, on a ledge high above a gorge, peering into a dark abyss. The wind is picking up and I’m swaying backwards, forwards, and I know I can’t fight it much longer. I’ll fall into the blackness and my body will never be found.
    It’s the next day. I’m sitting in Noel’s office, recounting my latest dream. When I stop talking, I dimly recall Tracey and Matt taking me home from the bar last night. I know my jacket was on so Matt didn’t see anything. But Greta did. Now she knows my darkest secret.
    ‘Sophie?’
    Noel is looking at me intently, as though my mind is a book with pages open wide for him to read.
    ‘You sound deeply unhappy,’ he says.
    All I want is to be alone. I’m only here because I have to be. I wish the whole world would go away.
    ‘I’m not unhappy.’ I drop my head as I say it.
    ‘Are you thinking of harming yourself ?’
    That starts my mind racing. Why would he ask that? I think of Greta, staring. Maybe she’s said something. It could have got back to Noel. I struggle to think how – maybe she told Matt and he . . .
    Noel’s voice cuts into my thoughts.
    ‘You’re not your usual self today.’
    ‘I got smashed last night. My head aches.’
    ‘Why did you drink so much?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Were you drinking to block out your feelings?’
    I shrug. I wish he’d shut up and leave me alone. I try to excise him from my mind, pretend that he doesn’t exist.
    ‘I’m worried about you, Sophie.’
    My hands automatically cover my eyes.
    ‘I wonder if perhaps you have thoughts of killing yourself.’
    I fall back against the chair, shaking my head.
    ‘No. No. No!’
    Noel takes a notepad from his desk, and scribbles on it.
    ‘I think it’d be best if you were to go into hospital for a few days. For your own safety.’
    I hate him. ‘I don’t want to go to hospital. Are you saying that because I got drunk? Because of the dream? The dream wasn’t real. I made it up. I was lying to you!’
    ‘Yes, the dream is a part of it, Sophie. The drinking. Your general demeanour. I feel that you’ve been slipping for a while now. It really sounds to me as if you might be planning to . . . to hurt yourself.’
    ‘I’m not planning anything!’
    ‘You’re not feeling suicidal again?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I believe you, but still, for a short while, I think you need to be protected from yourself.’
    ‘Truly, I’m only tired. I haven’t been sleeping very well lately. You asked me to talk and that was just some stupid dream I had. Or I think I had. Please don’t put me into hospital. I’m getting better all the time. Please.’
    ‘It would be irresponsible of me not to admit you. Given what happened last time. And it is only for a little while.’
    I try every argument I can think of but he’s not listening anymore. He’s on the phone to Marie, betraying me.
    I sit there thinking of how when I’d overdosed before, I’d been threatened with a psych hospital. Just the idea of being locked up had terrified me. I’d managed to wriggle out of it then with the compromise that I would see a shrink regularly. And now that shrink – Noel – isn’t listening but is making plans to commit me.
    Too quickly I’m in Marie’s car headed for the hospital. After the first handful of platitudes she doesn’t say much. It’s all part of the job for her – carting another crazy off to the loony bin.
    I am so frightened. What are they going to do to me? Will they lock me in a cell? Will they make me take off my clothes and see my cuts? At that moment the worst thing happens. I cry in front of Marie. Without a word of comfort she passes me a tissue. I throw it on the floor. I close my eyes – I’m so tired – and when I open them I’m in a waiting room filled with mad people. I try to hide from their vacant stares, their hate-the-world eyes. It’s a real nightmare this