I hate parties… I’m always the odd one out. I don’t like to sing and dance and parade myself in a short skirt like the others do. I don’t want to attract men in that way.

 

Nic seems to think the same way. He can’t hear me when I try to talk to him, so after a while, I give up. I creep outside – no one will miss me there. I’m not the life of the party… Jess and Lisa seem all too happy to monopolise that title. Even Diane and Ric, who only drop in for a few minutes each, get more attention than me.

 

I’d go home, but it seems rude… and besides, there’s nothing for me where I live. It doesn’t really deserve the description of a home. Home is where the heart is, they say. In that case, my home should be in Australia, with Danny and Liam, or in that far-off grave in Scotland, where Ben lies. Anywhere but in Holby, where no one means much to me.

 

Jess has been lovely to me. I could not have asked for a better friend recently… but she’s so different from me. She can’t understand anything about me, about what I think and what I feel.

 

Danny understood. He never let me feel alone when I was at a party. He’d always be there for me. I loved him… loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, ever. I loved him more than Sean. But I needed to stay with Sean… in those brief moments when we were together, he made me feel wanted, made me feel loved. More than anyone else has ever done. He wasn’t the one I wanted, not after he left me alone, but he was one. And I needed to be wanted and loved, so I let him do what he wanted and leave me. Love you and leave you. That’s what he did to me. Except he never loved me… use and abuse. That’s more like it. Used me for sex, and abused my trust.

 

Danny treated me as though he really cared for me. When he asked me to go to Australia with him, I couldn’t believe it. I thought that he loved me too. And then I found out that he didn’t mean it. That hurt… it hurt more than anything Sean could ever do. I’d come to expect it from Sean. I’d never dreamt that Danny could ever hurt me. But Jess was so kind that day. She let me talk to her, let me cry on her shoulder… she stopped me from drinking too much, helped me through it. And she’s been helpful ever since. She calls me back into the party, tries to encourage me to dance, lift my spirits a bit.

 

But I don’t feel like dancing or drinking. I feel a lot happier when the guests all leave… even though a woman is giving birth on Lisa’s kitchen floor. But I feel ever happier when everyone has left, including the new little family, and I’m left alone with my friends. Jess, Lisa, Nic, and I. And they tell me that I can move in with them.

 

“Just don’t play with matches,” Lisa warns. She’s joking… I think. Even so, it means so much to me. It means so much that Nic tried so hard to arrange this, so much that Jess and Lisa agreed. Maybe my heart will stay in this home.

 

And then Nic takes me and we dance. And he kisses me. I know that Jess and Lisa are dying of jealousy and I can’t help but enjoy it. Nic isn’t Danny, I don’t love him, but I like him and I like kissing him. I’ve never been the ones that the guys liked – Danny didn’t want me, Alex doesn’t want me, Ben didn’t want me… but Nic does.

 

And, even though I was never the life of the party before, I think that now, just at this moment, I might well be. My own private party. And that’s all that matters.