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ROISIN: if things were permanent- Oh god I wish things were permanent. I miss feeling at home, Eve. I miss knowing what to do, how to say what I need to say. I can’t even get the words out. I miss the Friday evenings I had last year, joking about our weird English teacher and dancing in the streets like we didn’t care about anything. I miss being friends with you. I miss playing Cluedo in the dark and watching rubbish horror films and turning them right off when they got a bit… inappropriate. (laughs) I miss that feeling of knowing, knowing anything.

Sometimes I think I’m broken. You’d say, ‘no, you’re not’. But I wouldn’t believe you. Oh my god, I miss you so much. Last year was so beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful. Eve, I miss you. Come back. You can’t come back really, I know that. I know it. I promise I do. Oh my god. Cries.

They say that only the good die young. Can you believe that? They tell me all these things as if they’ll make anything better, and they tell me it’s okay. They say everything’s going to be okay. Oh, they tell me it’s okay. Oh, Eve. If you were here we could laugh it off. But the point is, you aren’t here, and I miss you, I miss you so much, I need you here. That’s true, I know that. But they were wrong. You weren’t good. You were awful, just the worst (laughs) and I loved you, I did, but you were far from good. You smoked cigarettes and drank cold tea. Not iced tea, cold tea. I don’t know why, but I loved that about you.

You took what the world gave you.

I’m friends with this girl called Leila now, and I hate it so much. She’s so great, Eve, I just know you’d love her. You would. Maybe I would like her if you were here too, but as it is, I can’t bear to look at her. I miss you so much. I don’t know what to do, Eve, I don’t know anything, I don’t know- (cries some more, buries head in hands). I can hardly even remember.

We went to town at the weekends. We did that, you and me. I remember, ‘cause you’d always buy the same lemonade. And I’d get Dr Pepper, do you remember that? I bet you’d forget that, if you were- if you were- I can’t, I can’t do this. I can’t talk to you as if you’re still here, ‘cause you’re not. You’re not here. God. (wipes tears from face, shakes head downwards).

Avril Lavigne. You loved Avril Lavigne. I haven’t listened to her music since- since.

Mum said one day I’ll forget. She said, “that girl wasn’t good for you, Roisin,” and she said- she said- god, I can’t do this- she told me to talk to you. She said this would make me forget. So why does it only make everything a thousand times more real? Why can’t I just forget?

Mum promised me. She promised it would get better. She said everything will be better when I have a nice husband and a house and a kid, and a little boat, and a house in the suburbs. I used to think that’s what I wanted. I used to think I wanted it to get better. Now I just-

Now I just want it to stop. The voices in my head, I want them to be quiet. And I want you back. I don’t want to forget you; I want to keep you forever. I want to give you these flowers in person, not here in the darkness in a- I can’t do this- in a (pause) graveyard. I want your smile back, your flannel shirts and your cigarettes, and the real you, not just the memory. Not just the ghosts.

Alice: I stand at the door of the library, and you’re inside. I don’t know whether it hurts more that I’m not by your side or that you’re reading my favourite book. Do you remember that? Do you remember our phone conversations at 1am? You used to ask me all sorts of things, but of course I’d never answer truthfully.

Except that time.

I don’t know what compelled me to tell you that, of all things. I suppose it was a way of giving you a piece of me to carry with you that wasn’t a lie, wasn’t all a path to murder. They told me not to get too attached to a victim’s family, and they told me it would make my job much easier; they were wrong, they were so wrong. I’m glad I had my time with you.

It feels odd to be watching you through the glass as you turn the pages of Pride and Prejudice, a smile on your face, on hand in your dark curls and the other holding the book on the table. It feels odd to be here when I know you so well, and you know nothing of me, except that I lie, and I manipulate, and I kill. It feels odd to miss you so much. It feels odd that the aching in my chest has never really gone away since I met you.

I watch you for a while, just turning those yellowing pages. It hurts to say this, but I still love you. It feels strange, to love someone when to them I am but a stranger.

When you lift your eyes to mine in the window, I raise my hand in a silent salute. But before you can react, I have turned, and I have left.