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of Dr Fadden going out and then coming back again. All I feel is something hot suddenly shoved into my hands. It is a mug of steaming black coffee. I take a mouthful gratefully. Then I spit it back out when it burns the roof of my mouth.
    “Back to square one,” says Dr Fadden without a hint of irony. “And so are the days of our lives…”
    I stare at the doctor. Slowly his features stop being just a set of shapes and lines and settle into a face again.
    “Why is Ella allowed to leave?” I find my mouth moves itself to form the words. “What did she say? Have Marianne and Lexi gone too?”
    “Well I guess Ella must have been a good girl and told the truth. Now, do you think it’s fair that she gets to go and you’re still sitting here?”
    I scowl. “I am not loathsome. Mrs Dashwood doesn’t know the first thing about me. I mean, I can be a good person too…”
    Dr Fadden leans in closer to me across the table.
    “Why don’t you start then by telling me your side of the story?”
    I lean in close to the middle of the table as well.
    “No,” I say.
    “Oh,” he replies.
    “You see, unlike Ella, I’m going to stand up for my friends. Ella doesn’t know the first thing about loyalty. You know what? I don’t deserve to rot in jail! How can an adult even say something like that? To a sixteen-year-old as well! To someone as young and impressionable as me…”
    “Eliza,” says Dr Fadden. “ Earth to Planet Eliza. Do you hear me all the way up there on your soapbox? All the more to prove them wrong, don’t you see?”
    I put my coffee down on the table. I place it so it is perfectly spaced between Dr Fadden and me. It stands as a small cylindrical barrier between us.
    “Do I look like I’m stupid?” I say. “You fetching me this coffee and suddenly becoming my Agony Uncle, when for how long—weeks? Months? No one, not one single person, has bothered to listen to me—to us! How do I even know you didn’t set up that whole thing in the kitchen before? To try and get me to spill my guts?”
    “Hey,” replies Dr Fadden. “If I recall correctly, you were the one who asked to be let out. I didn’t ask you to stumble across your friend and try to pull her hair out.”
    He sounds defensive. I open my mouth, but then I close it again.
    “I am only trying to help you, Eliza. If you don’t talk to me, how am I supposed to help?”
    “Trust me, I—all of us—did a lot of talking. Do you think it helped? If it did, then you tell me why am I sitting here right now? I am done ‘talking’. Period.”
    Dr Fadden sighs.
    “Well, then I guess you’ll end up like Ella’s mum said. In jail and forgotten. Ella gets to go home. To a hot bath and a change of clothes, back to her comfortable room and bed. To carry on with her normal life. To forget about you and your friends.”
    Dr Fadden leans back on his chair and tips the front legs up.
    “Eventually she’ll go to uni. Maybe she’ll get the job she always dreamed of. Move out of home, meet a nice boy, get married, have children. And one day in the future, maybe she’ll think, ‘Oh, I wonder what happened to Eliza Boans, that girl I went to school with?’ Or maybe she won’t. Either way, you’d still be forgotten. So, what choice do you have, but to trust me?”
    He pauses and waits for my reaction.
    “Screw you,” I reply.
    Dr Fadden raises his eyebrows and uncrosses his arms. I do the same thing.
    “ Trust you? How can I trust you? I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know your first name.”
    He studies me with his fingers cupped in front of his mouth.
    “It’s Brian.”
    “See?” I point out, “I knew you’d never … oh.”
    We stare at each other. “Nice name.”
    I know a Brian from class and he’s both a nerd and a creep at the same time; he will probably grow up to afford a beautiful mansion on The Bourne where he can build his own lovely torture dungeon.
    “You lie,” Dr Fadden says. “Brian is a terrible name. I know