‘Your fiancée?’

‘No… She’s er…’ I couldn’t just blurt out that she was dead, especially after I’d just spoken as though she was very much with us.

‘Another time then,’ Tiff suggested before the silence became awkward. ‘My cousin, Drew, and I like to make it our mission to help newbies settle in, especially when they’re new to the big smoke. He’s a nurse too. He’s also a superhero geek and Flash Gordon is one of his favourite films so he’s going to be gutted he missed you. Drinks another time?’

I nodded. ‘Thanks. I might take you both up on that. See you.’

‘See you, Indy.’

We set off in opposite directions. I stopped and turned round. ‘Tiff,’ I called. ‘You want to know the real reason I left the pub early? It’s full of snakes and I hate snakes.’

Tiff laughed at the film reference and waved.

I smiled as I made my way towards the tube station. Human interaction. A proper conversation. And a joke. Another small step.

12

Jemma

I lay on the sofa on my back with my laptop resting on my stomach, staring at a slideshow of photos of Scott and selfies of us together. Every so often I paused the slideshow and clicked onto his company’s website or LinkedIn, shaking my head at the photos of Adam.

It was nearly two weeks since his text announcing the birth of Adam’s twins and just over a week since I’d discovered that he was actually Adam and concluded that the twins were his. I couldn’t make sense of it. Who was the man I’d fallen in love with in January last year? The man I’d given my heart to? The man who I’d planned to spend the rest of my life with? Had any part of our time together been real or had I just been a bit of fun between work commitments? But if that was all I’d meant to him, why propose? Why take it to that next step?

Mum had stared at me, ashen-faced, when I’d told her my news after her appointment with the consultant. She kept saying, ‘There must be some mistake.’ I recognised the denial as I’d been there myself.