Another scoop of glass shards tinkled into the bin, and Elise tossed herself into the sofa's plush embrace. "How can one bottle break into so many tiny pieces?" she asked, wiping a slick layer of sweat from her brow. "I'm sorry, Cade. I don't usually make my friends tidy up after my silly mistakes."

    "Chill, Ellie. Do you really think I've never cleaned up a broken bottle or dozen before?" True to her word, the coffee table shone after Cadence's thorough scrubbing, its exquisite polish beaming at Elise from below its clutch of trinkets. A satisfied smile took root on Cadence's face as she disposed of several surface wipes in the same bin. "How'd you get Roomie to let me back in, anyway?"

    Robin's door stood dormant. Not one sound had squirmed its way out of the room to Elise's ear during the clean-up, the unfamiliar absence kneading its claws along the back of her neck whenever her mind distracted itself. "It's less that he's letting you stay and more that he's too tired to argue against it, I think," she said as she rubbed away the latest imagined pricks over her skin. "I wouldn't push it, though. He's only this quiet when he's furious."

    Falling against the kitchen counter, Cadence shrugged and shoved her bottle of lemonade to one side. "Fine, we'll keep it clean. I've never gone hard on hard tap water before, but there's a first time for everything, I guess." She peered out of the window and sighed at the relentless downpour that battered against the glass. "Including drowning in my own car trying to find food, apparently."

    "Sorry, but you'll have to save that first for another time." Elise peeled herself from the sofa and shuffled over to the freezer, pulling out two frozen pizzas from the upper shelf. "Pizza. Tea. Films. Don't say I don't know how to look after my guests."

    "Yeah, if your guests are like fifteen and this is their first sleepover," Cadence groaned as she pushed the ice-cold boxes into Elise's chest. "Want to do each other's nails and gossip about our crushes too?"

    "Want to sail through the streets in your crappy car? Just roll your windows up – oh, wait."

    Cadence shut her eyes and shook her head, releasing a small, exasperated laugh. "Guess I'll get started on our pillow fort."

    By the time Elise fell back into the sofa, she was more than ready to melt into the rising tide of steam that swirled before her. Fresh hits of sharp kitchen herbs struck her nose as she bit into the oozing, earthy warmth of the mushroom and pesto pizza. As the cosiness threatened to send her to sleep, a zingy sip of her fiery lemon and ginger tea perked her right back into the moment.

    Cadence kicked back into the sofa beside her, taking a sip of her own tea before setting the mug down with a sceptical expression. Despite the drama that preceded it, the moment Elise spent watching her friend at ease in her flat was surreal enough to stop her in her tracks. Inviting Cadence into her home had seemed unthinkable even earlier that day, and yet it had been familiar enough for Elise to make the offer without hesitation, and she defended her friend just as instinctively. Even after so much time, playing Cadence's faithful sidekick still felt so right.

    "Uh, Ellie?" A quick prod struck Elise's side, and Cadence's distant voice reached her in the deep pools of her thoughts. "As happy as I'd be to eat all this food by myself..."

    "Right!" Elise dragged her consciousness back into the room to find half the pizza missing, her own first slice still squished between her fingers. At some point during Elise's daydream, Cadence had swapped the plate on her lap with a fleece blanket that she kept rolled-up between her legs. A flicker of embarrassment flew along Elise's nerves as she finished her slice. "Sorry for spacing out on you. I guess I've got too much on my mind."

    Rain rode on the next whip of wind to clatter against the windows, splitting the cool air with a snap. "You wouldn't have that problem if we had anything stronger than zen garden rainwater to drink," Cadence said, yet the sip she took from her plain purple mug seemed to pass over her taste buds with less offence than her first. She threw her beanie onto her discarded jacket and kicked her boots off, sniggering to herself as she settled into her seat. "Mel tried to get me into this stuff a few times, but I never tried it with her. She never pinned me down with gross weather though. That was a sneaky move, killer."

    Rolling her eyes, Elise finished her food and sat her plate on her lap. "Yes, I've totally trapped you here against your will. I'm just so devious," she said with a fiendish cackle, and the bemused face Cadence studied her with dismantled her performance into a genuine laugh. "You don't have to drink it if you don't like it. I just thought it'd be nice to share something warm and cosy, especially when the weather's like this."

    "It's no big deal. Turns out zen gardens don't actually taste half bad." As she took another sip, Cadence stared into the dark liquid in her mug, the last wisps of its vibrant steam stroking against her cheek. "Once again, I guess I should've just trusted Mel on this."

    Elise set her plate aside and freed herself from her shoes, pulling her feet up onto the sofa with a sigh. As she studied her friend's glazed eyes, an impulse soared like a comet into her mind's orbit, its blazing course reaching her lips before she could think it through. "What was she like?"

    The tea in Cadence's mug splashed as she swilled it around, running her tongue over her teeth. "She was my rock, plain and simple," she said as her voice laboured under a heavier weight than her slender silver necklace indicated. The blanket rolled onto the floor, yet she did not move to collect it. "We met in a sixth form art class, and she dragged me out of the gutter when I thought I'd lost everybody else. My old buds from school, Faith, Oli...you."

    A rush of heat scorched along Elise's throat as she sipped from her own tea, and she hid her face behind the pastel red mug between her hands. "Cade, I'm sorry you had to go through that. I had no idea things got so rough for you."

    "I get it. You don't have to keep apologising." As the little light entering the room from outside dwindled to scattered specks, Cadence put her drink down and stretched out her limbs. Her hands slid between the back of her head and the sofa, her necklace catching Elise's eye once again in the overhead light's pale glow. "Mel was sweet, but in the kind of way where she wouldn't think twice about kicking your butt if you messed around. If I ever skipped class, or got caught chilling in one of the busted-up buildings, or missed a dentist's appointment, she tore into me harder than Flo ever could."

    "Did she really give you grief about a dentist's appointment?"

    "You know it. She was about to drag me into that office herself just so I didn't end up eating through a straw when I got old. I still keep the pearls spick and span now, just in case that's what she comes back for." Cadence flashed her teeth at Elise and sighed, rolling her head over her hands. "She had her shit together, and I guess she helped me sort my shit out too. Put that together with the fact she wrote a ton of romance stuff, and it's easy to see why Flo wishes Mel were her daughter instead of me."

    The final few words of Cadence's speech stuck to the room's walls, every letter formed in scathing cursive. Keen to erase the bitterness that tainted her friend's tone, Elise invested all her attention on the side of Cadence's face. "She sounds like she really looked out for you," she said, a small smile lighting up her lips. "I wish I could've met her."

    With a shrug, Cadence stared through the ceiling. "Maybe you will. She's out there somewhere, probably kicking ass at whatever she's doing now," she said as an airy dreaminess shone over her eyes. "Not that I know what that is. Since she vanished and cut me off, I've not heard a damn thing about her."

    "That's so weird," Elise muttered, the tense lines across Cadence's brow making all too clear the touchiness of the subject. "Have you asked around? Maybe her parents have heard something."

    "Maybe after six months of silence, I should just let it go," Cadence answered as she blew her hair out of her face. "Sure, I'd love to know what the deal with her running out on me was. I'd even love to just hear she's okay, really. But that ship sailed a long time ago."

    "If it hasn't been ten years, I wouldn't give up hope on your old friend just yet." Hiding her smirk, Elise cast her eyes down at her phone and stifled a gasp. "Gosh, it's gotten late! I still need to set up the sofa for you to sleep on."

    Cadence rolled off the sofa and leaned against the living room wall. "I've slept in that scrapheap car before, Ellie. I can handle surfing on this sofa as is." As she swigged down the last remnants of her tea, Cadence followed her friend over to the kitchen counter and slid the mug across to the side of the sink. "Gotta say, I'm kinda glad I don't have to go back to Flo tonight. The grump's a damn handful when she wants to be."

    Though she started clearing away, Elise found herself pausing as the surfaces of Cadence's eyes steeled. "How long has Florence been...like this?" she asked while setting the plates by the sink.

    "Moody and bitchy? She's never not been like that." Cadence toyed with the pendant of her butterfly necklace, her eyes locked on the space beneath the table. "But her temper's gotten so much worse since I moved in, and all this forgetting stuff, mixing things up, missing meals..."

    The dregs of her tea turned bitter on Elise's tongue. She left the mug in the sink and rearranged the cushions on the sofa, tossing the fallen blanket over the back. "Missing meals? I didn't know she wasn't eating."

    "Duh. Why do you think she never goes anywhere? She barely has the energy to pick up a glass without knocking it over." Landing on the tidied sofa with a huff, Cadence lost herself in a moment of thought before sighing at the picture in her head. "I tried telling her it's stupid to starve herself, not that she ever listens to me. She just keeps saying she doesn't do enough to need more than a few bits of fruit, then bitches at me until I leave her alone."

    "Cade, that sounds...so rough."

    Elise's answer vanished beneath the sound of Cadence's weight shifting over the sofa cushions. "Do you know how many times she's yelled at me for dying my hair? Or this sleeve – I've had it for a year and a half, and she still gets on my ass about it like she did when I was getting it done." Her head fell into her hands, and her hands tensed around her hair until they formed near-full fists that trembled with frustration. "I didn't sign up for any of this, Ellie. Nobody told me I was going to have to play dress-up with my birth mum just to make sure she actually changes her clothes every so often."

    When the idea of dementia had popped into Elise's head in the café, she had focused on Florence's forgetfulness and mood swings. Her client's swirling mind had often spawned whirlpools in their creative seas, forcing Elise back to port before she even finished charting a course to the sandy shallows of writing peace. At a stroke, Cadence's deflated features tore the curtain open on a patchwork of deeper levels. The struggles Elise had entered into were not just about dementia itself, but an entire household and professional network living with dementia without ever facing it head-on.

    "Now I'm being a grump," Cadence muttered, looking up with a sad smile as her friend sat down. "I'll stop dumping on you. You didn't invite me over to hear me whine about my shitty home life. It's not your problem."

    "No, Cade." Her heart trembling in her chest, Elise shuffled along the sofa until her shoulder touched Cadence's arm. The little spark of contact between them was enough to coax the words out of Elise's mind. "I told you, you're never my problem. I'm with you all the way, and I want to be with you. You're my friend, and whatever your relationship is like, Florence is your mum, and this is too big to ignore. I'll do what I can to get you both the help you need, okay?"

    Cadence's lips parted, but no sound came forth. Only as Elise's hand closed over hers did her voice eke out, its syllables fracturing in the cold air. "Jeez, Ellie. Way to get intense about it," she said with a laugh, wiping her eye and swallowing a choked sob. "I'm alright, though. Once we get Flo that diagnosis, she'll get whatever meds she needs to be better, and it'll all be fine, right?"

    The girl avoided Elise's gaze, yet she persisted until she fixed her eyes on Cadence's flushed face. "We both know this isn't the sort of thing that gets better," Elise said as her eyes burned. "It's okay to feel overwhelmed by it, you know. I know I am, and I don't even live with her. One moment, Florence is so sharp and witty, and the next, it's like she doesn't even know you're there."

    "Or like she wants to knock your head off with that walking stick she carries around." Though she laughed, tears pooled in the corners of Cadence's eyes, and their wet glimmer stuck in place no matter how much she rubbed at them. "It's so weird. I've never talked about this with anybody, not even Mel. I guess I just got used to keeping it all to myself and pretending to be cool with it."

    "Well, get used to sharing, girl," Elise said, giggling as she nudged Cadence's arm. Her friend shook her head, and Elise fell into Cadence's side and let her head fall on the girl's shoulder. A single breath brought the same scent of mint and tea tree, a blend that became more familiar and comforting with every encounter. "It's cool to talk about your feelings too, you know. The coolest, I think."

    After an uncertain moment that wrapped around Elise's throat like a snake, Cadence dropped her arm around Elise's back and pulled her closer. "And what the heck would you know about being cool, Queen Cat Lady?"

    "Cats are cool! Why else do you think they say 'cool cats'?"

    "Ellie, literally nobody has said 'cool cat' out loud in at least twenty years. You sound like someone's grandma!"

    With feigned fury, Elise poked at Cadence's stomach until her friend swatted her hand away. Their eyes met across the small sliver of space between them, the single living room lightbulb draping veils of thin ink over their faces. Against the darkness, depthless mines of glistering gemstones twinkled in the girl's eyes, and the longer Elise looked, the closer they beckoned her. So much had changed since she last saw Cadence like this, and shades of her friend's struggles with her mother and former friend tracked through the charcoal-grey creases in the girl's white top. Elise had missed a lot, and she could not stay by her friend's side without facing it all down.

    None of that long, long history unsettled Elise now, however. Like the butterflies along her arm, Cadence was all the more beautiful after so much transformation.

    Her friend tilted her head, a puzzled expression on her face. "Ellie, are you –"

    "I'm fine," Elise spluttered, tearing her gaze from Cadence's eyes to bury her face in the girl's shoulder. "I'm just really glad you're here, Cade. I've missed this. I've missed you."

    "What's not to miss?" A light laugh parted Cadence's lips, yet the look she aimed at Elise's eyes arrived clad in an armour of cool steel. "Do you know why I was so pissed at you?"

    Every particle of Elise's being announced its presence with an irresistible gravity. "You said it was because I left," she fought her gut's sinking feeling to say.

    Cadence dropped her head and withdrew her arm from Elise's shoulders. "I mean, sure, but that's not all. I was mad because I missed you too."

    "Really?"

    "For real. I missed you so damn much, Ellie." Without warning, Cadence inched forward and brushed her fingers over Elise's face. As the dark locks slipped out of Elise's sight, she realised Cadence had swept a clutch of stray hairs aside, letting her fingers come to rest along the side of Elise's neck. Her breaths washed over Elise's cheeks in slow, hot waves, and Elise could not find the energy to fight the tide that carried her away. "I was wondering..."

    The strength had fled from Elise's legs long ago, and every word Cadence uttered sapped the energy from the rest of her body. "Yes?" she said through the drought that raged in her mouth.

    "Are you chill with me hopping in your shower?" A fiendish smile formed on Cadence's lips, and she pulled her hand from Elise's skin with clinical ease. "I was kinda in a hurry this morning and totally skipped it, so now I stink like your wine-stained carpet. If not worse, actually."

    "Oh." Despite having shared the same room as her friend for an extended period, Elise had not noticed anything as offensive as Cadence suggested. If anything, the twinge of disappointment in Elise's gut betrayed that she had been hoping to pass the whole night in Cadence's personal air. She rubbed away the cold sting Cadence had left on her neck and gestured to the bathroom door. "It's no problem, no. The shower is just through that door there. Just be careful, because the boiler's been a bit fussy lately."

    Cadence gave Elise's arm a short, sharp tap before she rose from the sofa. "Fine by me. Cold showers are all I get in the cabin sometimes." She reached the bathroom door and turned on her heels to wink at Elise, nudging the entrance open with her hip. "Catch you in a bit, 'cool cat'."

    A cringe rolled through Elise's body, though it did little to dampen the joy from Cadence's parting laugh that lifted her heart. It also failed to distract Elise from the knowledge that, if for a fleeting snippet of a moment, she had wondered what it would be like to kiss her best friend.