‘I’m sure you know she wrote a fucking book about me. She sold what we had together as though it were a product. Then she fucked off, saying she needed therapy to deal with all the terrible things I did to her? I didn’t do terrible things to her, we did terrible things to each other at times. But none of that came out in her so-called autofiction book. Everyone just gobbled it up as truth. How do you think it felt to be cast in that light? Watching her go buy this fancy apartment, a Range Rover and a cabin, too, while I had to move back in with my parents? I even lost my fucking job. I was a radio host and my channel dropped me, saying they couldn’t employ a wife-beater. How are you supposed to defend yourself against someone who is apparently being a brave survivor by telling the truth, when actually, it’s all lies?

And then she came back, earlier this year, full of promises and regret, saying she still needs me, and that therapy had made her see that so much of what had happened between us went both ways. I believed her. I took her back because I love her, but still, all the while, she was lying to me. I know it. She was fucking someone else.’

‘Who? What do you mean? Anton, look at me.’ He won’t look at me. His knuckles grow pale around the coffee mug and I picture it smashing in his hand, its shards sinking into the soft white skin of his palm, spraying me with his blood. I swallow hard. ‘Who, Anton?’

‘I don’t know. I just know there’s someone else.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I found messages from him on her phone. Someone else’s cufflink behind the towel rail in the bathroom. Once, I happened to walk past and there was a man in the apartment. I could see his shadow outlined against the wall, from the street.’

‘Happened to walk past.’

‘Yes.’ He won’t meet my eyes and I feel a flash of pity for him after all. I remind myself that nobody is all bad, people can’t be cast in black and white.

‘Anton. That sounds very painful. It’s not surprising that you’re deeply hurt by this. Anton. Look at me. I need you to tell me the truth. Why would she lie about all of this?’

‘She told me recently that it was to punish me. For leaving her. And that she was sorry. She feels trapped by that narrative, now. She says it’s stifling and awful to have to maintain that what she wrote in Nobody was the truth.’

‘Anton. Let me ask you this and please be honest with me. Have you hurt Leah?’ Sometimes a careful but direct question is the best approach.

‘No.’