Memory is a tricky thing. With every recollection a little bit of the truth is eroded. My book, The Dead Are Gods, is about the loss of my best friend, Larissa, about the secrets we keep from one another and how we can continue to love even when someone is dead.

Its first iteration was simply a desperate attempt by a grieving person to put on the page things that felt to be slipping from my fingers. How her hair looked after she washed it, fresh from the shower. Her body against mine as we squished onto a tube full of commuters, dressed in our best things, the night full of possibilities before us. Even the things that pissed me off about her, I needed to get down quick, before I forgot.

The first pang of grief I felt was the loss of our shared history. It still existed, but in this nebulous way that felt like panic in the air – a sharp, metallic taste. The mutual friends Larissa left in her absence would text me and we would pore over past histories together. “Remember how she hated calf muscles?” “She hated dancing but I saw her dutty wine one time and I will never ever forget it!” These conversations were less reminiscing and more a solidifying of a storyline. This is how she was; this is how she loved, this was her, here, definable and concrete in our hands.