I remember a party June had when we were 18 or 19; her family was moving and no furniture had been installed in the new place yet. Nothing beautiful or breakable inhabited it. The electrical systems hadn’t been connected. The house simply sat: empty, beckoning, full of promise.

So June had a party there, of course. We lit it with candles; tealight after tealight arranged like airplane exit signals, spiralling through every floor of the house and making it glow softly: flickering, seductive, full of promise.

It was one of those parties. I didn’t really care about talking to anyone there; the sweet burn of whiskey and coke made its way warmly through my body in place of the blood in my veins and the throb of that wordless, trippy techno someone always put in the cd player substituted itself for my heartbeat.