I continued to play my part every year with the performance of mince pies and carrots. I feigned excitement about what “Santa would bring.” And I pretended not to hear my brother’s annual reminders of the truth that he never wanted me to forget, as if I ever could. I knew I would be rewarded on Christmas Day for my silence in the plot.

I never realised until he died that grief makes you feel like a helpless child again, afraid of the monsters under the bed, crying out for a mother who will never come. Left only with the cold, empty space where love used to be.

Once upon a time, she was my best friend. My only friend, really. Looking back, she was my antagonist. I spent years believing we were like sisters. It took me a long time to realise she never considered me blood. The signs were all there — just clouded to eyes that hadn’t been trained with enough love to consider them relevant.

I was breaking every rule I’d ever been told to follow. It was intoxicating and terrifying. That trip wasn’t just about cigarettes or punishment. It was the first time I glimpsed who I might become, even if I was still terrified of it.

To my youthful and inexperienced eyes, Jordan Knight looked like a gorgeous Italian man had eaten James Dean and then birthed a beautiful hybrid Adonis. (Jordan’s Canadian, as it turns out, but this was my fantasy after all.) Now, nearly forty years later, as I search for him on Google, Jordan Knight just looks like just another bloke called Dave…and I wonder if I might finally have a chance.