Mayres leaves. I glance at Ben, but he hasn’t looked away from the screen. I don’t think they’ve had an argument today but I can feel on brewing. And I’m not going to lie, Mayres is kind of pissing me off a little bit. She’s been really snappy with Ben since he got home, which isn’t helping anyone. If she just checked in with Ben politely – like, asked him how he’s feeling today – maybe Ben wouldn’t mind actually opening up to her.

‘You feeling okay about today?’ I ask. I don’t want to bring up Christmas dinner. Ben und Alex made a meal plan so Ben could feel prepared, but I read online that talking to Ben about food and eating all the time actually makes him feel worse.

‘I’m fine,’ he says. I guess maybe we shouldn’t talk about it.

We get to the end of the level, and then I say, ‘We have to do Rainbow Road before we go get changed.’

‘Really? You think you can handle that amount of absolute failure?’

‘You never know. I might be good at it.’

Ben laughs at me. ‘We’ll see about that.’

*

I end up wearing the only skirt that I own, which is grey, with a collared shirt and jumper. I rarely get dressed up, since I am the most unsociable person ever to grace the earth, so I take the opportunity to brush my hair, which is probably the first time I’ve done that this entire year. Ten points to me.

Family members start to arrive and Ben and I are on ‘greeting duty’, which involves more hugging than I would like. First Grandma and Grandad arrive, Grandad grumbling about something to do with his car, and Grandma gives us an apologetic look. Then our Spanish grandparents arrive, having travelled from Madrid last week to stay with Uncle Claus’s family, and Ben has a mangled conversation in Spanish with Abuelo while Nan embarks on a long lamentation on how I cut most of my hair off in the summer.