-

She starts in Sid’s bedroom. He’ll never know she was there -except Cassie always is because she’s right there, papered on the wall above his bed. That’s where she starts you see? The bed, where she waited for two days for him to come home. Two days so she could explain and prove to Lachlan that Rory has better taste. Two days because she’d missed him ever so and somehow Scotland in its solitude doesn’t compare to her Sidney. Didn’t compare to her Sidney. Well, just Sid now. Lovely Sid and the lovely, lovely Michelle. (See, four was fine when the first one counted - not that she blames Tony, because it wasn’t his fault. Then four became three and three’s an awkward number. So Cassie got subtracted. Left on the other side of the mirror as the world turned upside down.)

She rifles through papers, picks through the remains of his laptop; looks at herself on his wall, arms wrapped around her bare knees. (She’s beginning to feel like Alice looking through the looking glass at a parallel universe beyond.)

She looks and she looks but it’s just not there.

-

From there it’s the train station and Scotland for a week, a week filled with pills and booze and sleeping on Rory’s floor. Then there’s the highlands and grass, looking for a glint of gold and she lies there, just for a while - is this where she left it?

No.

-

Back to Bristol and she searches Sid’s house again, under the bed and between the sheets (was it here? Was it here that she lost it?). She starts getting frantic and days start with vodka and a little, little tab. Colours swirl and not even Chris understands anymore, no; Chris has Jal now (again?) so their conversation on boxes on the pavement is swept aside. She is swept aside. Again.

-

She retraces her steps, walking backwards for days - she’s sure it’s somewhere out there. She’s just got to find it.

World spins round, topsy-turvy; there are too many Tweedledees and Tweedledums to count. So many couples, all interchangeable in their smiles. She’s nothing but a trapped Alice, searching for the drink to make her grow taller (and stronger and prettier and better).

-

Then, then, she sees the bench. Yes, it must be here, it must be here on this bench. Somewhere. She runs her fingers over the painted wooden slats, one by one, inch by inch; fingers feeling for the intangible. She gets on her knees, the grit on the pavement prickling a little as she scrabbles, searching for what she’s lost.

Oh poor little Cassie, searching in the dirt for that feeling from before, the one she left behind when she took his hand and said ‘Hi’. She thinks it fell, like a bangle from her thin wrist, so light and weightless she didn’t notice its absence.

Then Tony became kind, Sid jumped to conclusions and Michelle comforted someone else.

See? Topsy-turvy.