You seemed engrossed in an article, and I watched your back for a long while. You were close enough for me to be able to see the rise and fall of your chest as you breathed. And I copied even that, syncing my own breath to yours. I got up to leave, while scrolling through Instagram on my phone, no doubt appearing distracted if anyone happened to be watching. I looped my hand through the straps of the Neverfull bag, yours, not mine, of course. Then I walked out. My heart thundered in my chest and my mind raced as I stepped outside into brilliant sunshine. No one said anything. Why would they?

I’d taken the car that day to ensure a swift getaway, and I reached it within seconds – I’d driven around the block at least ten times when I arrived to snare a parking space on Grønnegata, a stone’s throw away from Kaffebrenneriet. My hands were slick with sweat on the steering wheel. I wanted to roll down the window and sing at the top of my lungs. It suddenly made sense to me in those moments why some people choose a life of crime. I fought the urge to laugh hysterically but settled for a smug smile at my own reflection in the rearview. The bag stood on the passenger seat next to me, just like its doppelgänger had done earlier that afternoon as I drove the few hundred meters home. Nothing appeared different, and yet everything was. Before I drove off, I fished your phone out of the bag. It had several notifications – WhatsApp, Messenger and Outlook, but Face ID was activated and there was no way I could access it, as I’d anticipated. I turned it off, and then I dropped it into a storm drain on the street.

At home, I carried the bag sagely and nonchalantly up the stairs like I had done every day for a couple of weeks. When I first bought the bag, the annoying flat-sharing girls on the ground floor had cooed over it when I bumped into them in the entrance hallway. Oh, my God, they’d chanted, it is, like, soooo cool. So, nothing new if I bumped into them again, but I didn’t. I made myself wait for my cup of tea to brew, ginger and turmeric, what I imagined you’d choose. I took the bag through to the bedroom and upended it onto the bedsheet. Your keys, bingo. Your wallet. Louis Vuitton, too. Nice. And predictable. Like you, I thought, back then.