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CHAPTER 1

"What's keeping you up Karma?" Tasha asks softly. "You can tell me."

I don't tell her the nightmares are returning. She'll just insist I go back and see my counsellor even though it was not that simple. She didn't understand that counselling sessions were not about erasing the pain, it was about dealing with it – and to do that I had to confront the pain. And I was simply too weak, too tired, too busy to do that.

"I've just got a lot on my mind."

"You said that yesterday too," she reminds me as if I've forgotten.

"Mmm."

"How's your family?"

I think of my mum, her brother - my uncle Eugene, her nieces and nephews - my cousins. As far as I'd heard everyone was healthy and happy – from what I recall of these past few months, no updates of bad news had been forwarded to my phone or email.

"Good I guess."

I take a sip from the fruit juice she has just served me and shrug. The orange juice is too cold for my liking and there are bits at the bottom but I stomach it with a hearty swallow. Any occupation of my mouth would have to do until I could find a way to change the topic or leave her abode – whichever came first. Speaking to Tasha about my problems never made me feel any better – I learnt that the hard way in secondary school, when she insisted on making her year 9 oral assessment about the need for reformation in the council housing system, using the anecdotes I'd told her in confidence as a point of reference. To make matters worse, she got full marks for it and so was nominated to retell it to the whole cohort at our end of year assembly.

Karma and the Council, it was entitled. The tragic chronicles of one young girl and the many homes she lived in. From that moment on I swore to never tell her anything personal ever again.

"What's going on in the love department?"

I grow shifty and take another gulp of my drink.

"We're not about to talk about this."

Tasha looks at me cheekily and I watch her eyes glint over the rim of her wide, steaming mug. "Is there someone?"

An idiotically lavish smirk sprints onto my face as I desperately try to conceal the riot of excited emotions igniting my spirit.

"Oh my God, there is," she shakes the mug so recklessly that some tea sloshes onto her hands, scalding her porcelain skin a bright scarlet. She's so excited at my reaction that she doesn't pay any mind to her burn or the stained white rug beneath our feet and instead looks directly at me with brewing euphoria.

My silent response provides no deterrent and she comes over to prod me on the shoulder, her other hand still clasped around the half-full mug. She takes a long drag from it before prodding me again. "Spill!" She demands.

"Nobody," I smile crookedly.

"Bullshit," she announces. The mug finally goes down to the island surface and now she is inches from my face, the smell of heat, cigarettes and peppermint radiating from her skin to mine. "Who is it?"

I look down in defiance. "Seriously, it's no-one."

"You're lying," she moans.

I laugh and shake my head. "No-one, I promise you."

She reaches again for her mug, dunks it down and pushes past me to rinse it in the sink. "I know you're lying, just tell me," she mutters.

My answer is elusive. "There's nothing to tell you."