‘No, I mean my boyfriend, Miles. Where is he?’

‘Oh he said he’d meet you at the hospital. Didn’t realise he was your fella,’ said the paramedic as she strapped a blood pressure band around Jemima’s arm.

Jemima’s eyes began to burn and before she could stop them, tears flowed. Lying on the thin ambulance mattress, her body was weak as though its vitality had leeched away. The love she’d had for Miles that held her up day to day was gone. And as the crack in her heart opened, she sobbed for all the time she’d given Miles, for the hope she’d had that he was, underneath it all, a decent guy. She sobbed for letting in someone so unworthy. She sobbed for the one who’d been too scared to love, who’d waited and waited, never opening up, who finally had, then made the choices that led her here, lying alone in an ambulance. She sobbed for the woman that had trusted Miles to love her. She sobbed because though whatever ailed her would heal, her shattered heart was something no surgeon could fix.

‘Jem?’ Miles said.

Jemima looked at her phone. She was back in her bedroom. ‘Hmmm?’

‘You were a million miles away. I said, what did Eve say about this filth draft?’

Jemima listened to the sound of her own breathing. She did feel alive but it was the alive you experienced standing on a dangerous precipice. Was Miles her certain death? Surely the constant threat of a fatal fall was no way to live? She deserved better but where was that better going to come from? Hopeless cynic Lance and his Christmas cracker jokes? Tim who probably thought she was a crackpot? Or Chance who was so, so far out of reach?

‘Jem-Jem. You okay? Tap once for yes, twice for no,’ Miles chuckled.

‘I’m fine. It’s fine. Eve appreciated the draft as a political manifesto so—’ said Jemima bringing herself back into the room again.

‘And then gave you a month to get her a proper draft or they’ll drop you,’ said Miles laughing.

Fucking Shaheena, Jemima seethed. She was unbelievable. What else had she told him?

Suddenly, Jemima’s face went cold. What if Shaheena had told him about using the girls’ stories? Jemima slapped her forehead as she recalled a recent conversation when, like an unadulterated imbecile, she told Shaheena how she’d finally managed to execute Eve’s notes.

‘What else did Shaheena tell you?’ Jemima asked.

‘Not much. Just that your deadline is a week away,’ said Miles.

Jemima sighed with relief. Perhaps, for once Shaheena had exhibited a modicum of discretion.

‘And that you nicked stories from Meagan and Simi’s lives.’ Jemina deflated like a three-day-old balloon. Great.

‘Fear not, Jem-Jem. Your secret’s safe with me and at least you found a solution. Ten out of ten for innovation.’

‘Yeah and it’ll only cost me two best friends,’ she said cradling her head in her hand.

‘They’ll get over it. The main thing is Eve is happy, yes?’