When you're five years old you set a promise in the dark, your sister's ice-queen eyes witness. Millie is sitting straight-backed against the headboard, face wide and earnest, and it seems as if the world has heaped itself on her shoulders, or maybe it's the strangeness of midnight.

"We can't make our wills or anything like that until we're eighteen," she says fiercely. "But I might forget this by then."

In later years you will find time to reflect that you're not as whimsical as Millie; young, you only think then that you could never forget something this important. But you can't argue with the three-years-older she holds above your head (the wisest bestest elder sister in the world.)

Your love for her borders on hero-worship, and looking back, you sometimes wonder if that's healthy.

---

The door bangs shut. "Jodie!"

How strange, the way it works: your hand is frozen to the table in the way it should have been on the phone, but that was minutes ago and maybe it was delayed-reaction, because it bombs your thoughts loose now and leaves you breathless in all the wrong places.

"Jodie?" – and he's in the kitchen. He shrugs off his coat and loops it over the hook with an easy smile. "Hey, sweetie, what's up?"

He doesn't find it hard to be happy; it jumps in his dimples, and your jealousy sharpens.

"Nothing." If you turn round too fast, you think, your face will shatter. "Hi."

Callum's behind you too quickly, a shadow planting hands on your shoulders. Grounding you, though he couldn't know you need it. "Guess what."

"Yeah?" (It's a tool, not a question. Maybe a lever or a chisel –)

– but you don't have the heart to ram it home. "I got a call earlier," he says. That was supposed to be your line. Your head feels frozen. "I'm switching jobs. You know that one I was after? It's better paid, too. Isn't that great?"

"Great." Hollow.

"Jodie. Hey, Jo, look at me. What's up?"

It shrinks down to this tiny moment: Callum's hand laughing on your cheek from a different set of feelings, the kitchen yellow and soap-shiny around you. You could close your eyes and swim into his mood – God, you want to, but life doesn't work like that.

You tug back, and your fingers are locked with the pull of the sea, twitching.

"Millie phoned," you say, and this is the moment where the ocean breaks free and swallows your ears; you should explain, but Callum's lopsided smile is a slash in reality and Millie lives in New Zealand on the upside-down side of the world where your promise is stamped in reverse and maybe that means you can break it or maybe that means you don't care. And you don't want to deal with the hurt and you-love-her-more/we-can-visit/I-thought-we-were-serious.

Instead, you say, "Millie's having a baby."

Callum stares. Then brightens. "That's great! Jodie, that's amazing, when –"

"In January –" like your voice is, bare-branched midwinter and he doesn't notice – "she wants it to be a girl."

"We'll write." Callum is strangely excited, and you can't help watching. "We could even go and visit if you like, I'll have more time off..."

Sometimes the world is layered, and Callum's voice has slipped to secondary importance – a street mural that looks real. Until it is, and you walk straight into it. It stands over you, glaring down six thousand miles and lies lies lies.

Breathing is conscious, a push-pull mechanism that needs jumpstarting.

"Hey. Jo." He's too perceptive. "Don't look so down. I thought you'd be happy."

"I am." You're a car squawking through gears as you pull out of the mural. Graffiti. "I am, it's just –"

You're spiralling into the hole you've dug and maybe – you could have climbed out, but Callum flips his arms round your waist, ambushing your handhold.

"There's still plenty of time for us," he whispers, and you nearly shudder because you're too deep, and you can only go on burrowing –

all the way down

to the other

side

of

the

world.

You knock your eyes down shut and pretend that nothing exists, that the floor is upside-down.

---

Callum always said you were too attached to objects, but packing feels robotic – a few spare clothes, some food and a toothbrush. You're only sentimental on two counts: the mirror Millie gave you for your twelfth birthday and the note.

It's fateful. You're cramped over it, the tear plops on the paper and the stair creaks. You turn your head up and you're nailed still as he comes down, fumbling at the switch; it jumps on and the light catches you both like a freeze frame that you could tuck away in your scrapbook and show your grandchildren; this is when I lied and ran away.

"Jo, what –" Callum's eyes are shadowed, cheeks sagging, and he doesn't get it yet. He reaches for the mystery in your note. "– the hell –"

You rip it back and Callum's grabbed your arms and you're scuffling, bags like ninepins scattered on the floor and he's staring at you like a stranger and if he were he'd be trying to mug you and you'd hit him. But this is Callum. You can't bear it.

"Millie's not having a baby!" you sputter like a dying candle. "She's dying – she's – cancer, I'm taking the next flight to New Zealand – she's got –"

It's the way he stares that undoes you, and you don't see him any more but Millie, Millie Millie Millie already imagined with pale loose skin and no hair and a hospital gown.

"She's got –" and time fast-forwards to her grave and he's still staring. "about – six months –"

"Jo –" Callum's face is like a cage, hemming you in, cut into pieces you don't recognise. "Jo – God – I'm sorry – Jodie –"

– and he's as lost as you are so he pens you even more with his arms and you think, you think, you think you're shaking and everything is an endless loop going round and round like a DNA strand that could have been Millie's baby only it's cancer and she's dying and you almost thought your lie was real.  You've melted away underneath.

Callum brings you back, not that he knows. "I can take leave – we can visit straightaway and as much as we can –"

And because you need your reality as much as him, you pull back because it's too intoxicating and you can't bear to be this close to someone when you're made of knives and they don't have any armour. So you cast the first stone. "I'm going to stay, Cal."

You'd always been a loose shot, and it bites deeper than intended. He touches fly-fingers to your cheek as if reminding himself that you still exist. "Jo – Jo..."

"Millie and I." You swallow. "We – made a promise when we were kids. That we'd always be with the other when she was dying –"

"So you can go when she is," he says stupidly. "She's got six months…"

In battle, you were always calm and precise until someone needled under your skin.

"Go to hell," you spit.

Callum's face is unfamiliar, open and naked, like someone's done a mirror etching of it. "But what about me?" He can't wrap his mind around it. "What about me, Jo?"

You can't answer, so you turn away and start picking up your things. The world is loud and heavy and it blares down your shoulders and twists the base of your skull, hard. Reality's easier to bear when you ignore it.

You'd have given up, but Callum is there, pushing you on even though he doesn't know it. "Jodie."

"If you cared, you'd come with me," you snap – and forget that you hate yourself. It goes deeper than that, and you have to ignore it, gripping your coat and thinking, Millie.

His face twists. "What d'you think I – Jo, I've got no money if I don't work, I can't just drop everything and – you can't, I thought we were –"

Prediction number two drops with the weight of a coin on mouse whiskers, and you make yourself cold. "Your problem, Cal."

He looks – broken. When you get to your room in Millie's house you will lock your door and cry and cry and cry. Right now you have twenty-four hours to hold up a faltering shield.

"Have a nice life," you say bitterly.

He doesn't stop you when you step out of the door.

---

The airport seats are cold and white, but you manage to fall almost-asleep, waiting for the seven-fifteen to Wellington. If he'd come five minutes later you wouldn't have known.

Maybe if you keep your eyes shut, he'll just flip out of existence; like a coin, spinning down a well; like the wish you made when Millie was ten –

He says, very quietly, "Jodie –" and stops, as if he realises that your name's not going to change anything like it used to, and you keep still and wait for him to understand and wonder why he keeps repeating himself if he knows, deep down, that you're not going to give in.

But he surprises you. He says, very quietly, "Maybe we could work this out."

Not I'm sorry/I'll come with you. Somehow that stops you – sends time jumping backwards all remorseful, and Callum –

You crack an eye open and with careful observation see that he isn't jealous. His face is stubble and harrowed eyes and he'll be late for work if he stays here and you know he doesn't care.

You nod.