Tuesday. Wednesday. I don’t even know any more. I just know that I seem to be talking to Doctor Gilyard more. I don’t mean to, it just slips out, like I’m talking in my sleep. ‘It’s Reta’s birthday today,’ I told her this week. ‘Yes, it is.’ ‘She’s eighteen.’ ‘Yes, she is.’ ‘It must be strange, having a birthday in here,’ I said. I thought Christmas Day in here was tragic, having to eat turkey and Brussels sprouts with a plastic knife and fork, but celebrating your birthday in here must be miserable. ‘How did you spend your last birthday, Emily?’ I looked at her again, my nerves thrumming. I don’t know how she does it, how she always knows what I’m thinking. It’s moments like that when I think that I don’t hide it very well. I must want to tell her these things, to understand. But then I think: what’s to understand? I’m my father’s daughter. I am who I am. It’s in my DNA. ‘I went to a gig with Sid and Juliet.’ She looked down at her notebook.
