I woke early – it had been a weird night even by our standards; we'd passed out mid-fight – and there was Kelly, curled round my duvet with her back to me. Her hair, all smoke and hairspray, clogged my mouth, and through the thin sweaty cotton of her green top you could count each of her vertebra. I stretched out my finger and placed it between two of the green cotton bumps and shuddered. She whimpered and wriggled and turned round. Her eyelids cracked open the layers of mascara and eyeliner.

'Ryan?' she murmured. 'Iss not morning?'

I shook my head. I couldn't trust myself to speak because when she opened her mouth I caught a reek of last night's vomit, drink, smoke and, somewhere in the mix, the pizza we'd had on the walk between the pub and the club – she only ate when she was stoned. I half-turned my head away and focused on the far corner of my bedroom. The cold dawn light slanting through the slats of the wooden blind showed the dust on my guitar. If I looked above it I'd see the photo of me the night I won PopIcon, but I didn't look up.

Kelly smiled dopily and reached her hand out towards me.

I drew away. 'You have to go.'

Her face crumpled.

'I said last night – I can't do this any more.'

'Ry.' Her eyes widened. 'We were both out of it last night. We both said things we didn't mean.'

I had no idea what she'd said. She'd been talking all summer and I'd stopped listening about the start of August. I just knew that her cold thin fingers on my skin made me cringe.

And she'd called me Ry.

'You have to go now.'

If she stayed another minute I'd hurt her. I'd tell her she disgusted me, that I hated who I was with her. That if I didn't get rid of her I would lose myself. Again.

'Is it the drugs? Because I only —'

'It's not one thing.' I fell back on clichés. 'It's not you. We had a laugh, OK? But it's over.'

Clichés and lies. We'd never had a laugh. Kelly wasn't a laughy kind of girl. Maybe at the start, when she was a bit starry about me. I'd liked that – the flattery. And her friends were cool.

She cried and fussed and clawed at me and went out and locked herself in the loo for ages and came out all shiny-eyed and, God, it was boring. By the time I got her bundled out into the road, sobbing and yelling and calling me all kinds of names, I felt as knackered as I used to feel coming off stage, only without the buzz. I pushed the heavy front door to and took a second to lean against it, eyes closed in relief, breathing in the quiet, the glossy white paint cold against my bare arms.

'Ryan?'

I opened my eyes to see my mother. 'Hi, Louise.'

She frowned, then stopped as if remembering that Ricky always told her it made her look older. Dark roots showed in her long blonde hair. That wasn't like her. I suppose I hadn't seen her for a few days. I'd been staying out, different places, mates' floors, Kelly's bed; one night a few of us sat up all night on the beach, drinking and having a laugh. Kelly's mates. I'd have to make new ones now.

'What was all that row?'

I shrugged. 'Kelly just left.'

'Was that shouting I heard?'

'How do I know what you heard?'

'Ry.'

'Don't call me that.' I tried to push past her, but she blocked me with her arm. She was wearing a peachy satin dressing gown, and her bony wrist poking out reminded me of Kelly.

'Did you upset that poor girl?'

'We broke up.'

'Ah, Ryan. She was lovely.' Louise and Kelly had done a lot of girly bonding over hair extensions and calories. 'What did you do to her?'

'Nothing. She had issues. I can't stand girls like that.'

'Jesus, you're a little bastard.' She shook her head. 'Poor girl.'

'She was a bad influence, Mam.' She loved it when I called her Mam. 'I didn't want to worry you by telling you this but, she was using – stuff. I couldn't trust myself around her. You know I don't want to get back into all that.' I put a little crack in my voice, the kind of crack no mother could resist.

Right on cue, Louise's eyes softened. 'Ah, love. You've been doing so well.'

'It was too much temptation.'

Louise's eyes widened in alarm. 'But you didn't, did you?'

'I could have.' I made my eyes troubled and innocent, though actually I was telling the truth. 'If she'd stayed.'

Louise's bird-skeleton shoulders slumped with relief under the peach satin. 'Well, you did the right thing, son. And you'll easily find another girl.'

Now that she was in motherly mode, she started wittering about breakfast and keeping my strength up, so I followed her down the hall into the kitchen, where the marble tiles chilled my bare feet. The kitchen had been completely transformed since I'd been in there, and was now decorated in shades of grey and black. I sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and let Louise rummage in concealed cupboards for pans. She hummed one of my old songs while she cracked eggs into a white bowl. I tried not to hear it.

I'd reached the hungry stage of hangover and was looking forward to getting stuck into the omelette Louise was whisking when Ricky slimed through the door, knotting his purple silk tie.

Louise spun round, flicking globules of egg over the marble worktop. Ricky broke off a frown, and then zoomed his attention straight on me. The attention I used to crave. The attention Louise still lived for.

'Haven't seen you for a few days.'

'I've been around.'

'The terms of your release require you to be at home for us to keep an eye on you.'

He made it sound like I'd been in prison.

'It's summer. I was only with my friends.'

'I've spent a lot of money on your recovery, Ryan. I'm not having you mess it up at this stage.'

Louise bent over the pan, swirling the eggs.

'And since you mention it, it is not summer, not now. It is the end of August and we have an appointment with Father O'Dwyer at midday.'

I sighed. 'I haven't decided —'

'There's nothing to decide. You messed up your exams. You're repeating the year.'

I didn't mess up: that implies I took my exams and failed. Whereas I did not take them because I spent most of what should have been my sixth year off my head and then learning to avoid getting off my head. At, as Ricky was so fond of reminding me, considerable cost. 'I don't know if I want —'

'It's not up for negotiation.' Ricky's voice was clipped, the way it was when he was telling some pop star wannabe No.

'I could go to a college in town. It'd be cheaper.'

'No. I – we need you where we can keep an eye on you.'

For someone who'd spent his life in the music business, Ricky could be ridiculously naïve. I didn't want to use any more, but if something sent me back down that road, Father O'Dwyer's school for posh boys would be as fertile a supply ground as anywhere else. Ricky thought that because it had a uniform and charged a fortune it would be some kind of monastery.

'Ricky, do you want breakfast?' Louise slid my omelette off the pan onto a square white plate. Regular round plates were too boring for Ricky.

Ricky frowned and looked at his watch. 'Just a coffee, Louise.' She busied herself with the cafetière. 'I've a meeting at nine. More problems with the Sweet Treat negotiations. Ideas above their station now, just because they had a number one in Lithuania. I need to...