‘Sorry,’ he says, but he’s already leaving. ‘I’ll see you later.’

The door closes and I don’t move.

I look down at my grey skirt and I really wish I was wearing jeans. I don’t feel like myself. I realise I still have my cracker crown on, so I take it off and tear it into several pieces.

I probably should have seen this coming.

He’s being unfair, but I don’t have any right to be annoyed at him.

I walk back into the kitchen. Mayres is still washing up. I walk up to her, and her face looks like stone. Like ice, maybe. There’s a pause, and then she says, ‘You know, I am trying my best.’

I know she is, but her best isn’t really good enough, and it shouldn’t be about how she feels anyway. I walk out of the kitchen and sit on the stairs.

Alexander runs past me with one of his new tractors.

I go into the porch and open the door to see whether Ben is just sitting on the kerb on the end of the driveway. But he isn’t. Winter is usually my favorite season, but Ben’s right-this winter has been the worst. I sit down in the porch, my feet sticking out of the doorframe. There are some fairy lights outside someone’s house across the road, but the more I look at them, the dimmer they seem to get. It doesn’t feel like Christmas.

I think I’m trying my best too. I sit with him at every mealtime table. I ask him how he is every day and sometimes he tells me. I started being his friend as well his sister.

Not that that matters. I don’t matter. He matters.

A car drive past. It’s getting sort of dark now. Dark and cold and rainy. I think about how nice that is, and then I laugh to myself. Since when did they become my favorite things?