A swathe of apps appeared in front of her, but Evie knew which one she needed. Her breath quickened as she clicked into the internet browser. As she typed the web address for Hugo’s internet banking, she prayed he’d saved his login details to the computer. When he had, she let out a little internal ‘whoop!’, grateful that at least something was going her way. There, his accounts opened up before her, like proud, wealthy uncles staring back at her. Jesus, that’s a lot of money!

She cleared her throat and clicked on the account labelled Savings, flicking away the sweat pooling at her forehead. With trembling fingers, she keyed in 100,000 pounds when prompted, then clicked through the dropdown menu of saved account details, praying once again that she would find Chloe’s name on the list. It felt like another small victory when she spotted Chloe’s account; no longer fearing but welcoming the appearance of Hugo’s ex amongst his possessions.

She held her breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and then clicked ‘submit’.

She opened her eyes, and her heart fell. A box had popped up asking for a code to approve the transfer for such a large sum.

‘Fuck!’ she breathed. She’d been so close to making a difference. Her mind working at double-time, it occurred to her that all of Hugo’s devices should be synced. Fumbling with the mouse, she clicked into the messenger app and there, at the top, still unread, sat a text from an unknown number. God bless you, Steve Jobs! She quickly copied the four digits, deleted the message and pasted the code into the browser, then clicked ‘submit’ again.

Your transfer has been made.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

She snapped the laptop shut.

When she returned downstairs, Hugo was where she had left him, but now in the foetal position. He stirred when he noticed her.

‘Hugo, I have to go. You know I have to go.’

‘Evie,’ was all he could muster.

And at that moment, Evie saw him. The real Hugo. He was pained and insecure, so dreadfully insecure, and craved nothing more than to be loved despite his flaws, which he tried so tirelessly to hide from the world. But Evie couldn’t be his person. Not if it meant losing herself in the process. Not when she had just started to love herself.

‘Hugo, you’re going to be okay. You just have to stop trying to be so damn perfect all the time. You can let your guard down a little,’ she said calmly.

Hugo looked at her and blinked twice. ‘There will never be another love story like ours.’