‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I think she tried to, but I was too drunk.’ All the arrogance and swagger he’d worn like a badge of honour the last decade or so had gone now. It was like talking to him on the phone, back in her bedroom in Mile End.

‘Me too,’ said Nina, closing her eyes at the memory.

‘That was my fault as well,’ he said. ‘You getting like that. I was watching you nervously and thinking, what have I done? It was almost a relief when you passed out and Jules took you upstairs so I didn’t have to worry about you falling over and hurting yourself.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘You really took a tumble on the dance floor. And poor old Jules…’ They each cracked a smile then, in spite of themselves.

‘I hate what I did that night, Nina, the night before my wedding. I hate the position I put you in with Alice. I hate what sort of man that makes me.’ He raked his hands through his hair, twisting the ends. ‘I did love Alice. I was just so confused.’

Flynn moved easily around Nina and Ted now, wiping down tables and regrouping chairs with tables. The friendship between Nina and Flynn had deepened over the last three months, and they were hanging out together again, but no longer slept together. He caught her eye and gave her a ‘you okay?’ look and she gave a confirmatory nod and shifted her attention back to Ted.

‘I had this silly idea when we were younger, after we met. I thought we were soulmates,’ he said.

She cupped her coffee and shot him a quizzical glance. She imagined her teenage self giving her current self a high five and yelling, I knew it!

‘There’s always been something about you, Nina Laurent.’

She rolled her eyes then, unable to suppress teenage Nina entirely. ‘Nina O’Connell,’ she corrected.

‘See! There!’ he said, triumphant. ‘You’ve always been able to cut me down to size with just one look. How is your father, anyway?’

‘Fine, I think. I never hear from him. But I see something about him every now and then in the paper and know he’s alive.’

Ted nodded but looked preoccupied, his mind elsewhere.

‘There was something between us though, wasn’t there? We shouldn’t have done what we did but…’ He trailed off. ‘I’ve been doing loops in my head since I last saw you. Did I spend my whole marriage burying my feelings for you? Was that what the affairs were about? But I truly believed I loved Alice when we were dating, when I asked her to marry me, right up until the wedding and I panicked. And I broke your heart!’ He was sobbing now, tears falling from his eyes, snot trailing from his nose, and it crossed Nina’s mind that he’d probably never spoken to anyone else about this before. ‘Am I a monster?’ he asked.

She reached over the table and took his hands. They felt cold and clammy as she squeezed his fingers. ‘No, Ted, you’re not a monster. You just need a really good therapist.’ She smiled at him to show the interaction was friendly, but firm. ‘For what it’s worth, I thought we were soulmates too,’ she added. ‘For a long time. I had to have, I would never have done what I did otherwise… and then I hated you for a long time too.’ She gave a short, sad laugh. ‘I think the truth is, we recognised something in each other. Even when we were young, we knew what it was like to feel alone, abandoned, in a way that Jules and Alice didn’t. Maybe they do now as adults, but it’s different when you’re younger. You were the first person I’d ever met who’d experienced anything similar to me. And yeah, I got wrapped up in that too. But then I realised you can’t have a relationship based on pain.’ She shrugged.