I keep searching for an explanation but there isn’t one. Only Aidan and I drive this car and before the pressure of Kieron’s illness, the tragedy that had befallen Connor a few months ago, I’d have dismissed the very notion that Aidan might be unfaithful, but the strain we’ve been under is immeasurable and we’ve all acted out of character. Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier, the thought that Aidan might have touched another woman steals my breath. He’s not the sort to have a casual fling, but the idea he might have fallen in love with someone else is worse.

For thirty-four years he and I have been an ‘us’ and I can’t picture us again as two separate entities. We met in a bar, both having leaving drinks with our friends before we headed off to uni. The heat was unbearable and we were crammed near the open door, the smell of cigarettes curling towards us from the smokers outside. He’d knocked my elbow as I lifted my glass to my mouth and was mortified he’d saturated me in Bacardi and Coke.

‘There are worse things to be soaked with,’ I had shouted over Dire Straights promising ‘Money for Nothing’ before realising there were many ways to interpret that. ‘I don’t mean… oh God.’ I was horribly embarrassed.

‘Hmm, well I won’t ask you to name one.’ He lifted his eyebrows and did a weird half-wink. ‘Sorry.’ It was his turn to apologize. ‘I was trying to master the art of the mysterious one-eyebrow raise but I can see by the horrified expression on your face I didn’t quite nail it.’

‘I thought you might be having some sort of medical emergency.’

‘Ha! Not quite, although I am going to be a vet so I’m sure I could have sorted myself out.’ This time, his face flushed red. ‘I didn’t mean “sort myself out” like… Another drink?’

‘Yes. Alcohol is the only answer to forgetting everything up until this point. Lots of alcohol. I’m Lucy.’ I stuck out my hand.

‘Aidan.’ He took my hand in his and a frisson of energy passed between us.

We spent the next few hours perched on a hard wooden bench in the beer garden where we could talk without yelling. Him draping his denim jacket around my shoulders when the night sucked away the remaining warmth from the day.

Neither of us wanted to go home, knowing that in each other we had found our soul mate.

‘This is crazy,’ he murmured when we’d finally been kicked out.

‘Totally,’ I agreed, but as he pressed his lips against mine under the star-speckled sky I was lost and found and his completely. Frustratingly we were heading to universities at the opposite ends of the country and tears filled my eyes as I thought about giving up my dream. Giving up him.