Free Lies Like Love by Louisa Reid

think she’s …’ He searched for a word he could use with Sue, settled on something objective, that didn’t make him sound too serious, too involved. ‘She’s kind of enigmatic.’
    Sue chuckled. ‘Aha. Enigmatic.’
    ‘What?’ Leo shrugged his shoulders, his arms wide, empty. ‘You know, you could read a subtext into anything,Sue.’ He put his hands in his hair, then rubbed them furiously over his face.
    ‘Leo, calm down. You know I’m just teasing. I’m glad you’ve found someone you like. I was beginning to worry.’
    He nodded. Sue was deep, deeper than their banter suggested. And discreet. She’d had her own problems – life events, she called them now, which didn’t do justice to her story at all. He liked how she could be so pragmatic though, and took a deep breath, fixed his thoughts on the morning, wiping out the bits of the night Lizzy had spoiled.

Audrey
    ‘Where’ve you been?’ Mum said. Her breath came in short sharp bursts as she stood in the hall, illuminated, the lights burning so bright they hurt my eyes. I squinted up at her.
    ‘Just out, sorry – it’s OK, we’re here now.’ I tried to hustle Peter past her and up to his room. It was way past his bedtime and I knew he’d be tired in the morning. ‘Sorry,’ I said again.
    ‘You don’t just go out, Aud. You know better than that.’ Mum grabbed my jacket, reeling me in.
    ‘Well, you weren’t here to ask, were you?’ I bit my lip. That had come out wrong. Peter went ahead and I gestured that he should go and clean his teeth.
    ‘Because I was at work earning money, which you’ve just been out throwing down the drain. Who’ve you been with?’
    ‘No one. We went to the fair. I’m sorry, all right?’
    ‘No, Audrey, it isn’t. I’ve been going spare. What if something had happened?’
    ‘What do you want me to say?’ I asked, turning back to look at her. Mum stepped forward and gripped my wrist with her left hand and poured whatever she’d been holding in her right into my palm.
    ‘What’s this?’ she said.
    It was my pills. She’d found the ones in the bin, theones down the side of the sofa. The ones under my mattress. I swallowed and didn’t dare look at her. I should have chucked them somewhere else, somewhere she’d never have found them. Into the moat, that would have been better. Under the water.
    ‘Audrey –’ she was shaking her head – ‘do you realize what you’re doing? Do you realize how stupid you’re being?’ Her voice got panicky, tighter and tighter. ‘If you don’t take your pills, you’ll get very poorly, Aud.’
    ‘I won’t. I have been taking them. I have. Just … just not all of them, Mum,’ I said, trying not to cry, a throb beginning to beat between my ears, like your heart underwater, swollen and heavy. ‘They make me feel worse.’
    Mum pulled me to her and held me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. The pounding grew louder, pulsing in my brain, until, with my hands over my ears it was all I could hear.

Leo
    The next morning Lorraine answered the door, a bright smile on her face. He stepped inside. The flat smelled better than before. She’d been hanging pictures, had a hammer in her hand, nails. A gust of air blew past and he heard a door slam somewhere.
    ‘Oh, hello, it’s Leo, isn’t it?’ Lorraine said, and Leo smiled back, shifting from one foot to another, then standing up straight, shoulders back.
    ‘Yeah, hi. I’m here to see Audrey. Homework?’ He gestured at his books. He’d brought them all, as if that proved it was his only motivation.
    ‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.’ Lorraine pulled a face, sympathetic, a bit sad. ‘Audrey’s not well this morning. Stupid girl’s not been taking her meds and got herself in a state. She gets bad sometimes, you know. So, she was up all night and so was I, sitting with her. I’ll have to take her to the doctor later, I reckon – she won’t be up for homework, Leo. Not today.’
    It was a lot of information all at