I can't do this.

It is the first thing Louise thinks when she wakes. I can't do this any more.

It is daylight now, the dull greyness that passes for morning is marking out the edges of the curtains. That's new since the last time Louise woke, strained and uncomfortable and rather chilly. Helen is passed out on her side of the bed, on top of the duvet, and Louise is still lying tight against her, one arm thrown over her. That arm has grown stiff over the hours spent in the unnatural position. Louise groans slightly as she flexes her fingers and forces her elbow to bend. She doesn't want to keep her eyes open, they're so sore and gritty. This is crazy. They can't go on like this.

A cold feeling settles in her belly as the implications of that thought swell. Stilling, she waits for Helen to breath, to blink, to twitch, anything to show that she is still alive. It feels like a lifetime passes before Louise realises that there is indeed a thin stream of air drifting in and out of Helen's mouth. If she concentrates hard enough, she can feel her arm being shifted slightly by Helen's slow breaths. The coldness in her belly twists into a sharp pang then starts to dull. She lifts her hand to brush Helen's cheek. It is cool with the coolness of the bedroom and heavy with her stupor, but not lifeless. Not yet lifeless.

I love you. Louise thinks. I can't do this.

Knowing that she will not get back to sleep again and satisfied that Helen won't be going anywhere without her noticing, Louise releases her grip on her partner and rolls back onto her own side of the bed. She stretches and flexes against the mattress, feeling her muscles protest about spending so long in one enforced position. Tough, she tells them, mentally. There was no way she was letting go of Helen last night. She was too scared. She twists her head to find the alarm clock, grimacing at the cricks that the movement sparks. Nearly seven am. That's why she is awake. It's her normal getting up for work time. The alarm won't be going off today though and Louise already called in yesterday to say that she won't be going in. Louise hadn't even bothered trying to explain, knowing that there was enough in the papers to give the whole of Greater Manchester the idea that they knew everything. Her manager had sounded terse. She had said she understood. But she didn't, of course. Stupid cow, Louise thought, she couldn't understand a thing. Probably already trying to work out how she could sack her without getting on the wrong side of employment law. Louise sighs at the ceiling. She has so much more to worry about than her job right now.

Helen. She turns on her side to look at her. Her mouth is slack with sleep but a slight frown creases between her eyebrows. Her skin looks slightly grey. Louise wishes she would wake up and everything would be back to normal. She wishes that none of it had ever happened. She wishes she could look at Helen without all of those horrible images crawling into her mind. It is terrible, really, because Louise doesn't know what she hates more – the thoughts about what Helen has done, or the thoughts about what has been done to her. They all start to blur into one another after a minute or so and they all made her feel sick. And sick with guilt. Which isn't fair, a little voice whispers in the back of Louise's head. She surely has nothing to reproach herself with. She surely has every reason to have felt hurt and betrayed and confused and... angry.

Louise blinks and discovers that she is gritting her teeth and clenching her feet and her hands, realises that she is almost writhing with fierce, irrational anger at the woman lying next to her, oblivious. If it wasn't for her, Louise could have a normal life. She could get up and go to work and not have people stare at her in the street, or kids follow her from a distance and shy away if she turns around. She wouldn't feel like a prisoner in her own house. She wouldn't sit up half the night listening to drunken, traumatised ravings or lie awake the rest of the night with panic tight in her chest. She wouldn't have to swallow that abuse or listen to slurred and fractured descriptions of things she has never wanted to imagine. If it wasn't for Helen, Louise would not have to hurt this much. She would not have to worry. She would not have to feel hopeless and useless and totally inadequate.

Helen starts to mutter. The words are indistinguishable but her distress is obvious. Her face screws up and her whole body stiffens. Louise's anger dissolves in the rush of concern.

'Helen?' She touches her shoulder lightly. Helen flinches and Louise does too. The pain is back in her belly, a gnawing ache. There is so little she can do.

'Helen.' She tries again. 'It's ok love. It's all right.' No effect.

'It's only me,' she whispers, close into her ear, not really expecting it to make any difference.

Helen's eyes open and she turns her head sharply to Louise. For a moment, there is nothing but confusion and fear, then that starts to soften as she leaves the dream behind her. Louise nurses a brief flash of hope that Helen will smile her small normal smile like she used to do in the mornings. That this will somehow signal that today will be the day that things start to get a little bit better. But as the seconds pass, Louise can see the memories wake in Helen's eyes as light and hope and even the relief at escaping her dreams die.

Suddenly determined to be normal, to pretend against all odds, Louise says, 'Morning,' in as cheery a voice as she can manage. It sounds like a funeral.

She leans over and offers a quick kiss. Helen's lips automatically twitch slightly but it's hardly a response. The pain knots a little tighter. She presses her second kiss to Helen's forehead, unable to bear another rejection. At least she can pretend this is ok.

Helen doesn't move. Louise flops back and wishes she hadn't bothered. Together, they stare at the ceiling. Louise wonders what Helen is thinking about. She wishes she could read her mind. Then a second later she is thankful she can't. That gives her a twinge of guilt too. What she really wishes is that none of this had ever happened. None of it. Right back to forty-five, six, fifty years ago. Maybe more. She wishes that Helen's parents had never been born to wreak the destruction they have. But then, that would mean that Helen would never have been born, which would mean that they would never have had what they have. She doesn't wish that. Even with everything being so absolutely, unutterably shit right now, she doesn't wish that. Does she? Louise's eyes flick from side to side as she struggles to quell the uncomfortable thoughts.

Helen pushes herself upright, swings her legs off the bed and staggers to her feet. Louise jerks.

'You all right love?'

Helen waves a hand behind her, warding off the question as she lurches across the room and out the door. Louise, listening tensely, can hear her make her way into the bathroom. She gets up and swaddles herself in her dressing gown, pads softly to listen outside the door. Just in case. Louise has already removed all the pills in the cupboard and any sharp edges she could think of, but just in case. Louise had never realised how dangerous her house was until she tried to think of how to stop a person killing themselves there. She is not sure she will ever feel quite safe at home again.

Nothing happens though and Helen emerges a few minutes later. Louise prepares herself for a sneer, for waiting and worrying like this, but Helen just passes her without a glance. It seems the cruelty has worn itself out with the storm of her anger, or perhaps it's because she is not yet drunk. Louise follows her downstairs slowly. She can hear her in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards. She stops when she reaches the kitchen doorway. This is not going to be good.

'Where is it?' Helen mutters. 'Where is it Louise? What have you done with it all?'

She stops when she spots Louise and looks full at her.

'I need a drink.'

Still in yesterday's clothes, her hair every-which-way, her eyes reddened and so so empty, she stands in the middle of the kitchen, the picture of hopelessness. The simplicity and neediness of her statement bring tears to Louise's eyes. She hugs her arms around herself, bracing herself for the pain she knows she is about to cause.

'There is none. You drank it all.'

Helen's mouth opens. She casts around her for a moment then turns back to Louise and folds her lips together. She is just like a child, Louise thinks, confused by her own pain. And like a child, she can't solve her own problems.

'I need a drink.' She says it again. Helpless. 'Please?'

Louise can't bear to look at her any more. She turns on her heels and goes quickly through to drop onto the sofa. Leaning forward with her head in her hands, she presses the tears back into her eyes.

I can't do this.

I don't know what to do.

Helen needs a drink. But there is no alcohol in the house. Helen won't leave the house because of the reporters and the neighbours and the kids running wild, given licence to torture without being called bullies. Helen is genuinely terrified of them all. Louise would normally be the one to say they could call the police about anything that happens but Helen is even more terrified of them. And at the moment, Louise doesn't trust them further than she could throw the lot of them either. So that's no comfort. There are other uncomfortable thoughts there too, niggling away at the corner of her mind when she thinks about police, thoughts that she does not want to face yet. Guilt.

But Helen needs a drink. She has crept through from the kitchen to peer round the door at Louise, sitting, dragging her brilliant, dyed hair back from her face, agonising. Louise can feel Helen's eyes on her. She wonders if Helen understands what Louise is agonising about, what she is thinking if she does. Helen won't leave the house so if Louise goes out to get her more drink, Helen will stay at home. Alone. With all those dozens of different ways of killing herself that Louise has tried and failed to control. It will take ten minutes to walk to the nearest offie, nearly five if she takes the car, a good five minutes maybe, if there's nowhere to park. Then a few minutes in the shop, and the same length of time to get home. Fifteen minutes at the minimum, Louise guesses. There's a lot you could do in fifteen minutes.

She can't bear the though of coming back home to find... Helen.

She's not sure she can bear the thoughts that will accompany her all the way through that little journey, even if she came home and nothing had happened.

I can't do this.

But.

'Louise?' Helen reaches out to her from where she is clinging to the door frame. 'Please.'

Helen needs a drink. For the first time, Louise wishes fervently that they had a computer with the internet, that she was one of those people who understood how to do these things, so that she could "order online" or whatever they called it and some precious person would bring it all to her door. She could kick herself for not foreseeing that there might come a day when she could not, would not, did not at all want to leave her house. How silly of her.

If only there were someone she could phone, someone who she ask to go shopping for her. But Louise doesn't have many friends, not close ones, ones who she would trust. And those she does have aren't local any more, all moved away at various points down the years. She hasn't any family left, not many of them to start with. And who else is there? Neighbours, work colleagues, exes. No one she can call on.

Helen doesn't have friends.

Louise has never thought that this was pathetic until now.

Helen is still standing in the doorway, holding herself together, fingers nervously touching her mouth. Her eyes flick from Louise, to the front door, to her fingertips, to the floor, back towards the kitchen, to Louise again. If I did not love her, Louise thinks, I could just walk away right now and not feel anything. I would never have to feel this bad again. I would never have to make this decision.

It is a lie, of course, and Louise knows she is deceiving herself. Anything she does now will be a decision. Even if she does nothing. And she can't do nothing. Not again. It's the shame of doing nothing that sickens her so badly that she is panicking, knowing she will have to do something this time. She doesn't want to remember how she stood there, just there, when the police arrested Helen in her own house. Their house. Louise stares at the spot by the wall where she stood, just yesterday – can it really only be yesterday? - when she did nothing. She doesn't want to be that person. She never thought she was like that, when she had thought about it, when that sort of thing came up in daft conversations. Way back in school, in history classes, she had always got quite het up about ordinary people in Nazi Germany and that not doing anything when their neighbours were taken away for being the wrong religion or having the wrong opinion. She had always thought she would be one to do something, say something. She had always thought it would be easy.

Louise sighs and grits her teeth, dropping her head again. She can't take back yesterday. She can't undo the way she froze, her mind gone perfectly, hideously blank, as she watched the two detectives force Helen to stillness and lead her away. And she can't blame Helen for all the things she said last night when she was pissed out of her mind. She is glad that Helen said them, glad for the awful things she called her. She deserved it. If Helen wants to do it all over again today, Louise won't blame her. And she can't blame her for wanting to drown those images and those voices that Helen shared with her last night, going further than she has ever gone before in revealing her past as she lashed out. Nobody could blame her for wanting rid of all that, Louise thinks, surely.

Tentative fingers touch the back of her neck. Louise raises her head into Helen's hand, surprised that she hasn't noticed her approach. Helen slides down onto the sofa beside her, her other hand coming up too, to cup the back of Louise's skull. She holds her head there, still and intense, their eyes locked. There is a message here, Louise thinks. There is something she is supposed to read. Louise notes that Helen's eyes are dark this morning, a leaden grey, the skin forming lines around her mouth is loose, her lips are dry. As the moment deepens over a minute, Louise starts to wonder what she looks like to Helen's eyes. Maybe Helen is trying just as hard to read a message in her face. She doesn't know what that might be.

'Promise me.' Louise's voice comes out cracked. She swallows and works her mouth to try and make it function properly.

'Promise me.' Her hands grip Helen's wrists, just in front of her own ears.

'If I go out, promise me that you'll... you won't...'

Helen stares. For a moment, she does not seem to understand and Louise feels another surge of anger. If she has forgotten all the things she threatened, if she has forgotten what she did just the other day, if she has forgotten everything Louise said last night, Louise thinks she might hit her. No, not really. The anger dies as abruptly as it appeared.

Helen nods.

Slowly, holding her gaze, she whispers, 'Promise.'

Louise swallows hard, holds her breath. The cold pain sickness that is squeezing her stomach is killing her.

I can't do this.

She will have to do it then, go out. And if she didn't love Helen, if she didn't care, she could just walk out that door and never come back, keep walking away away away. If it wasn't for Helen.

But she can't do that, she tells herself as she draws Helen into a hug to hide from her eyes, those eyes. She won't do that. She will not do that. She won't.

"I must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on."

- Samuel Beckett