I don't realise I'm screaming until Ravi starts begging me to stop.

"Eve!" he shouts. "Eve, we have to do something."

"Call 999," I instruct, voice hoarse after all the screaming. "Ravi, theres so much blood. Why is there so much blood?"

"It's a slush," Ravi points out, bending down and touching the red. "Look, the ice is melting and it smells like strawberries. He must've been drinking it."

He's right. It's the cheap red kind that you get at the dodgy corner shop across the street. Josh is addicted to those things, he has been since he was a kid. And the sight of the spilled red ice, Josh's last treat in this life, makes me feel sick.

Josh doesn't appear to be hurt too much apart from the fact that he's dead. The red is starting to look more and more like cheap slushie and less like blood. There's a gash on his knee, his jeans ripped and stained with blood a little. But his chest is unmoving and his eyes, they're glazed over and glassy and unblinking.

I feel like I'm going to be sick so I turn away, letting Ravi check his breathing (there is none) and (non-existent) pulse.

Ravi is on the phone. "There's a dead body at Stockland Lakes."

The tinny voice on the other end replies. Probably cautioning him to stay there, asking whether or not the injured boy is actually dead or if he just appears to be and if anyone else is there. Ravi answers, something about not breathing and how I'm there and how he can't see anyone else. And then he hangs up.

"They're coming," he says. "A police car and an ambulance should be here soon."

They're gong to take Josh away. Prod at him on one of those cold tables, figure out how he died and when he died and—

"—I think I'm going to be sick."

And this time, I actually am. I manage to stumble to a bush and hold my own hair back as I throw up the cereal, the orange juice and the chopped banana I had for breakfast. Ravi attempts not to look disgusted.

"I'll get you a bottle of water," he says, heading to the corner shop where Josh bought the slush. "You, um, sit down? I don't know, just stay here, okay?"

When he returns, I'm sat on the ground, back to the river and cross-legged. He drops a bottle of water in front of me and joins me.

"Let me pay you back," I say. "How much was it?"

Ravi shakes his head. "No, it's okay. Are you feeling better now?"

I nod, unscrewing the lid off the bottle and taking a sip. "Poor Josh. Being dead can't be fun."

"At least he got out of GCSEs?" Ravi tries. "Sorry, that wasn't funny. He didn't even get to finish his slush."

"So he couldn't have jumped then," I point out. "He never lets a slush go unfinished."

That is very true. He can chug those things down ridiculously fast and leaving one unfinished is so not the Josh Hartley way. And the very thought of Eden pushing him off the rocks makes me want to throw up all over again.

But I don't thank God. I drink the water and sit in silence with Ravi, the dead body of my ex-boyfriend and his best friend floating in the murky waters behind us along with cigarette butts and crumpled cans and condom wrappers and his strawberry slush. And when the ambulance and police car arrive, Ravi is quick to jump up and start talking, displaying all his leadership skills and shit.

"It's not blood, all that red," is the first thing he says. "It's strawberry slush. See the plastic container there? And I checked his breathing when I couldn't find a pulse..."

"Miss, are you okay?" a paramedic asks me. His eyes are wide with concern, like he's ready to help me no matter what I say.

"I'm fine," I whisper.

He doesn't look like he believes me, but moves on to Josh.

Josh the dead body, sitting in a river of red.

Josh the murdered.

Josh who's dead because of me.