Dear Amy

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Katie Browne is packing.

She gropes under her bed, seizing her blue backpack with the faux leather trim and begins stuffing clothes and toiletries into it with frantic energy, her eyes blinded by tears.

There is very little sense or order in this packing, but that’s all right, because it is the act of packing and not the objects themselves – the grey and green leggings, the Union Jack make-up bag puffed up to bursting with all her lip colours, the maroon jersey top with gold stitching that makes her feel so mature and sophisticated – that makes the difference.

Katie is leaving for good this time. She is never coming back. She has had enough. She flounces down on the bed, pulling on the pair of shiny red-brown ankle boots that her dad bought her a month ago.

On the window of her little room, the rain taps with increasing insistence, as though urging her to think again.

Nearly tripping over her discarded gym bag with her still-damp swimming kit nestling inside, Katie swings the blue backpack over her shoulder, all the while aware of the hateful murmur of the television downstairs in the living room and its chorus of canned laughter. They’ve turned the volume up but she is sure she can hear hidden whispering, her mum talking about her to that useless lump Brian. As though he has any right to an opinion.

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