The Seven O'Clock Club

One

Freya

It's a funny thing, time. It only really matters when you have a life to lead. I checked my phone. Seven p.m. on Tuesday, the sixth of September. A time and date of zero importance aside from the fact it was the first time in six months I had managed to leave the house.

Given it was such a momentous occasion, the room in which I now found myself couldn't have been less inviting. Everything about it, from the nondescript ivory walls to the mismatched chairs we were perched on, exuded an obvious, albeit unintentional, sense of neglect. No, neglect was too strong a word. More a lack of attention by someone who had more important things to worry about than interior design. How anyone lived day to day in a space like this was beyond me.

The woman who had let me in and whose flat it was-Genevieve-smiled at me. The other two avoided all eye contact.

I observed them both as subtly as I could. The one sat across from me, who Genevieve had introduced as Victoria, looked like she had stepped out of Hello magazine. Perfect nails, enormous engagement ring. Stupidly shiny hair. Roughly two decades older than me, but with way better skin. The other woman-Mischa, I think Genevieve said she was called-was far less intimidating, and couldn't have been older than nineteen. A girl, really. The human equivalent of a baby mouse-small, innocent, and fully aware that, at any moment, there was every chance she might get swallowed. There was something about that I found oddly reassuring: she looked how I felt. I gave her my best attempt at a smile, something that Genevieve appeared to take as a signal to begin.

"Thank you all very much for coming. We're still waiting for one more, but we should probably make a start. Would anyone like a drink before we kick off?"

We all looked at each other, then shook our heads. It seemed I wasn't the only one who wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible.

"No? Okay, then."

Genevieve pulled her dress delicately over her knees, smoothing out the creases in the olive-green chiffon with the tips of her fingers before moving both hands upward to tuck a shock of curly auburn hair behind her ears. She seemed young for a psychologist. Midtwenties, maybe? Pretty, but in a nerdy kind of way.

I felt for her then. It couldn't have been easy, bringing together a bunch of people with nothing more than a brief email and an even shorter telephone conversation to go on. But then again, it was her choice, wasn't it? To bring us here, I mean.

I hoped to God she knew what she was doing. The last thing I needed was to end up in an even worse mental state than I was already in.

I want you to open yourself up to something a bit different. Those were the precise words she'd said to me on the phone a week ago.

It's based on a theory I've been working on. A different approach to group therapy.

Ha ha, don't worry, it's nothing illegal!

Oh God. Why the hell had I said yes? How had she convinced me to come? Now that I was here, in her flat, I couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to be less. At some point she was going to ask me to open up about what had happened. In front of other people. Even the idea of it made me feel physically sick.

I tried to think about something else, but it was too late: my ears had already blocked up. Oh please, no, not here. I felt the panic as it started to build, a small ball of it swelling inside my stomach like a fast-growing tumor. The room began to swim and ice-cold sweat pooled and soaked into my jumper, sticking to me like an unwelcome second skin. My eyelids felt sticky-I squeezed them shut in a desperate attempt to clear my vision. I was going to pass out. I gripped the arms of the chair and willed myself back into the moment, taking several long, deep breaths as quietly as I could, just as the doctor had told me to do. I concentrated on the sound of my heart as it hurled itself against my rib cage like a convict desperate to escape. Please, brain, don't do this to me now. Calm down, Freya, calm down. Just. Calm. Down.

And then it all went black.

Two

Mischa

OMG. I knew she was a goner as soon as I looked at her. Her face went all gray and then she started breathing weirdly, like she didn't have enough air.

I was ready to catch her the second she tipped out of her chair. Managed to get hold of her by the shoulders, just before she face-planted into the-gross-brown carpet.

"Oh my, is she okay?" said a voice behind me.

I looked down at the woman's head on my lap. Freya. Same name as a girl in my old class. She was totally out of it.

"I'm not sure. I think she's fainted."

Did those words really come out of my mouth? What a stupid thing to say. It was so obvious she'd fainted. I moved a bit of blond hair away from her eyes and touched her forehead, wiping off the sweat with my thumb before drying it on my skirt. Poor thing, she must have been panicking like anything to go like that.

The head on my lap made a noise.

"Let me get her a sugary drink," said the same voice as before, which I realized had to belong to Genevieve. "I have a bottle of Coca-Cola somewhere. That might help."

I realized the other woman-Elizabeth? Victoria?-hadn't said a word. She was staring at the two of us on the floor, looking like she wanted to disappear. She reminded me of the people on trains who pretend they aren't there when a homeless person gets on and starts asking for money. I watched as she reached down toward her handbag, then seemed to change her mind and sat back in her chair again. She looked rich. Posh. I could tell because her bag was made from real leather and it had a proper gold chain.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

Uh-oh. I stopped staring at the bag and looked around the room in a panic.

"Can you grab me that?" I shouted, gesturing toward a wastepaper basket under the desk. That got the posh woman moving. She uncrossed her legs, jumped out of her chair, and ran past me to get it.

From somewhere behind me I heard a loud smack.

"Bugger."

I turned around. The woman was standing, bin in hand, rubbing her shoulder. A whole load of paper and pens lay in a mess around her feet. She stared at the pile helplessly. Completely frozen to the spot.

"Can you give me the bin, please," I said. Loudly. But it got her attention and she did as she was told before immediately bending down to pick everything up off the floor.

I turned my attention back to Freya, who was now on all fours, her head hanging over the bin. As I scraped as much of her hair as I could into a ponytail in case she really was going to be sick, it occurred to me that it had been a while since I'd had any kind of contact with another human being.

Just as I thought I was going to be sat there all evening holding the hair of someone I had never met before, I felt her body start to relax. A few seconds later her breathing returned to normal. I let out a big sigh of relief. The bin was metal and full of holes; if she'd been sick, it would've gone everywhere.

"Thank you. I feel much better now."

"Here, take this." Genevieve was back. She handed Freya a glass bottle of Coke, and the two of us helped her into her chair.

"I'm really sorry. It's been ages since I've passed out like that."

"Please don't worry," Genevieve said. "It's absolutely fine."

"Yes, I know, but it's still embarrassing."

She laughed then, looking over at me for the first time. Her face was pale but she definitely had more color than before.

"Victoria, would you like to come and sit back down?"

Victoria. That was it. I knew it was the name of a queen.

Victoria was leaning against the desk, arms crossed, staring past us through the open window. I realized she'd sorted the untidy mountain of papers into four perfect piles. She looked a bit taken aback by Genevieve's question, as if she'd forgotten the reason she was there, but did as she was told.

"Freya, are you sure you're okay for us to begin? There's a toilet down the corridor if you need it."

"No, it's okay. I'm fine now. Really."

I saw Genevieve open her mouth to say something else, but then a buzzer of some kind went off loudly behind us, making me jump. What was that?

Victoria sighed. Freya seemed completely oblivious.

Genevieve looked at us, clearly pleased. "Oh good. Our final volunteer has arrived!"

And with that, she got up and hurried out of the room. Poof! Her floaty dress made a breeze as she ran past, knocking a few sheets of paper off the desk again.

Don't laugh, Mischa.

Victoria pressed her lips together, just like my old teacher, Mrs. Crossley, used to do when she was angry with us, but she didn't try to pick the papers up. Instead, we all sat, bums in seats, none of us saying anything. I felt shy all of a sudden and, even though the room was warm, I shivered, like someone had opened a door to the outside.

I could hear sounds coming from down the corridor. Slowly getting louder. Two voices, definitely, but I had no idea what they were saying. As they got closer, I realized the one who wasn't Genevieve was a guy. Oh God.

He appeared first, walking into the lounge like he'd been there a million times before. I knew he was good-looking before I even saw his face properly. Some people just gave off that vibe.

"All right, ladies? Apologies for being late."

I forced myself to smile at him and nearly passed out like Freya. And who would've blamed me? I mean, how often is it you're sat waiting for a counseling session to begin and the most famous singer in the country walks in and sits down opposite you?

Three

Callum

Right, where the actual fuck was I? When I got the message from Skye saying she wanted me to see a cousin of some workmate who she thought might be able to sort me out, my first thought was great, I'll go chat about my inner fucking child for an hour, get given a journal, and then leg it home. But I figured she'd be sending me to a swanky Shoreditch warehouse with free jelly beans and the world's most expensive mineral water, not some shitty tower block in the arse end of nowhere. I made a mental note to call her when I got home. I already knew full well I wouldn't actually; I didn't call anyone anymore.

And hang on. Who the hell were these other people? If there was one thing I'd gotten used to in my career, it was exclusivity. If I had the clout to get the cast of a reality TV show chucked out of a VIP area, you'd have thought I wouldn't have to share intimate details about my private life with a bunch of fucking randoms. I thought about getting up and leaving, but then I remembered I was on very, very thin ice with my management at the moment and I should probably do the full hour. Besides, I had nowhere else to be. And I wouldn't be going anywhere for a while either, not until my shit show of a label decided I was allowed out in public again.

I pulled myself out of my head to look at the other people in the room properly. Hmm. Hot, but a bit too old. Definitely could be hot if she ate a few more Krispy Kremes. Too hippie to be hot. No way, man, too young-even I had limits. I smiled at them all anyway. You never knew.

Fuck me, I was shattered. Last night had been heavy. I hadn't left the apartment. Hadn't seen anyone. (Hadn't seen anyone for a while, come to that. Couldn't face it.) But that hadn't stopped me from seeing away most of a bottle of tequila. I had that haze. That thing you get when you feel like you've got a thick fug of something shitty wedged in front of your eyeballs. I was used to it now, but that didn't mean I liked it.

I realized then that the hippie was talking and I tried my best to focus. ". . . impact of grief, and the stages that we go through in order to come to terms with it. I've selected the four of you for quite different reasons, which we will go into later."

The hippie took a breath and started chewing on the end of her pen. I could tell she was on edge, but I couldn't be arsed to feel bad for her. Instead, I exhaled loudly and looked at my watch. With any luck she'd get the hint and wind up early.

"Now, I want you to be honest with both me and each other in these sessions. It doesn't matter what you say, or whether you agree or disagree with my views, as long as you are completely truthful about your own feelings. And I would like you to commit to come to at least four sessions, once a week, at seven p.m. Is that okay?"

For fuck's sake-four sessions? She stared at each of us in turn. I nodded for the hell of it, along with all the others, though the hot older bird didn't seem impressed. I doubted she'd last two weeks. Maybe even less than me. I got a feeling the skinny blonde had said yes without realizing. She had that expression about her. Away with the fairies. Drug problem, maybe, although she didn't quite look shit enough for that. Only the third one showed any interest. She was wriggling around in her chair like a puppy on speed. And she kept looking at me. That wasn't surprising-I could see why I might have caused a bit of a stir-but it made me feel tense. I tried my hardest not to look at her. The last thing I needed was some lovestruck teenager following me back to the apartment and setting up camp on my doorstep. I'd only been in the place a year and I really couldn't be fucked to move again. Even if I did hate it.