Finally, by the evening, I have my plan. I'll go shopping tomorrow.
I'm about to start getting ready for bed when there's a tap on the door. I ignore it, figuring it's probably someone for the next flat down. But whoever it is doesn't go away and I have a look out of the spyhole, then let out a sigh. It's Laurel.
I open the door. 'What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on the unit.'
'Can I come in?' she says and then moves forward, and I find myself stepping back and letting her through.
She curls up in a tiny ball on my sofa and starts biting at the corner of one nail.
She's wearing a long black skirt that should be tight but I can see her knees scything up through it, her feet tucked under her. Her cheeks are hollow and kind of grey, her collarbones standing out. I can't help the comparisons coming. I feel like an elephant next to her, a hippo.
'You want anything? Black coffee?'
She nods and I make it weak, with a splash of cold water. Her fingers wrapped round the mug are skin over bone, the tendons standing out on the backs of her hands in sharp lines.
I want to ask why she's here, but I already know why.
'They'll be looking for you,' I say.
Laurel sips at her coffee and turns eyes that are out of some Disney cartoon on me. 'Yeah. Sorry, Hed. I couldn't take it any more, you know? They're going to transfer me to Newlard.'
Oh. Newland House, a private unit. I remember another girl getting sent there once. We didn't hear from her for months, then when she was finally allowed to write letters, she sent these long, desperate ones that went on for pages filled with teeny writing – like the more weight she put on, the more she disappeared. They watch you all the time, even on the toilet. No one gets away with it, not there. Laurel started calling it Newlard, which we all laughed at, at the time, but it's a place we're scared of.
'When?'
'I'm supposed to be going next week.' She gives me an anguished look, all eyes and skull, her forehead a huge tight dome under thin hair. 'What am I going to do? I can't – ' She starts taking gasping breaths.
'It's OK. It'll be OK,' I say. 'Do you want a paper bag?'
I'm mainly terrified she's going to collapse, have a heart attack or something. She looks so bad. But she also looks … thin. Thinner than me. By far. I know she thinks it too. It's an unspoken competition that permeates everything. And I hate losing. I try and pat her on the shoulder, awkwardly, and we both know I'm feeling only bone. That sharp bit at the top of your shoulder that ought to be padded but isn't. Not for people like us. I put my hand up to my own shoulder, for comparative purposes, and drop it fast.
Laurel swipes her hand across her face, smearing eyeliner to one temple, then looks at me. 'Maybe they'll change their minds. Or the bed will get taken by someone else. I could always … ' She pauses and pulls her legs up closer, rests her chin on them. 'What about you?'
'What about me? Nothing much to report.'
Oh yeah, nothing other than a bloody baby. That just sort of slipped my mind. I think I feel that little twitching kick and I shift forward, pulling my jumper loose.
Laurel is frowning. 'You look … You don't seem … ' She stops and there's a tiny part of me that wants to laugh at the puzzled expression on her face. I imagine telling her, the look of horror, and know I can't.
'I'm fine,' I say.
She cranes her head round, so I glimpse the sharp, clean bones at the nape of her neck. She's only been here once before, not long after I first moved in. She'd run away from Dewhurst that time too. It had felt so weird showing her the place, part of me feeling all grown up and oddly proud, another part feeling stupid, like I was pretending to be an adult. I realise now, the place still looks the same; I haven't exactly been busy decorating.
She gives a sigh. 'I wish I could get a flat.'
I know she means so that she can crack on with her version of Nia with no one to stop her. I want to tell her about the quiet, how empty it gets, but she wouldn't understand. Her mum would never kick her out anyway.
So we sit there in silence and looking at her folded up tight takes me back to the unit, to the circle of us all staring at the floor and each other, even though we weren't supposed to be looking.
Crap Things about the Unit, Number Four:
Group Therapy
Ahhh, Group Therapy. Group Silence, mainly. All of us scrunched sideways in our chairs, backsides aching, knees rubbing against the wooden arms while the therapist tried to get us to talk about – or, worse, paint – our feelings. An hour's worth, three times a week.
I got to know the carpet in that wide cold room so well. I can see the flecks in it, pale yellow, like vomit, on a dreary blue, when I close my eyes.
Each day the same. The only things that changed were the residents and our relative sizes. The way we counted each other's bones, trying to work out who was winning that particular week. All the admissions were like that, right up until the last one.