‘What did you think was going to happen?’ he asks her.

‘I thought… well, I don’t know what I thought,’ she replies. ‘But I didn’t think this would happen.’

‘I’m about to get married,’ he reminds her.

I’m sure she knows or she wouldn’t be here in that trampy dress. I catch myself. There’s nothing wrong with her dress. I’m just getting defensive because I can’t get my head around why she is here with him, now.

‘Don’t marry her,’ she says.

My eyes narrow angrily as my mood darts from one end of the spectrum to the other, from Buddhist to barbarian. I want to grab her by her fiery red hair and drag her into the fountain. Who the hell does she think she is, telling my fiancé not to marry me? But as much as I want to confront her, I can’t, because I want to hear everything she has to say first.

‘I said I would leave her for you, months ago, but you told me not to,’ he snaps back.

What?

‘Because I wasn’t going to tell you to leave her. It wasn’t my call. You should’ve just left her,’ she replies.

‘Eva, this wedding has been booked for months. I can’t just cancel it – we’ll still have to pay for everything. Why are you telling me this now?’

‘Because I love you and I can’t let you marry her,’ she replies, folding her arms. ‘I won’t let you marry her. I know it was only supposed to be a bit of fun at first but…’

I urge myself to exhale, but I can’t. I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t scream at them…

‘I love you too,’ he replies. ‘But I can’t back out now.’

Tinnitus deafens me. All I can hear is a screaming in my ears – a sound I wish I could make myself, but I can’t. I feel as if I’m going to pass out, but I can’t. I can’t afford to look away. I need to see this.

As Eva takes him by the hands and pulls him in for a kiss, I’m not really sure why, but my immediate response is to take my phone from my pocket and snap a picture. I check the shot, to make sure it’s in focus – I do everything but put a bloody Instagram filter on it. Well, I did say I wanted to capture every last second of today, didn’t I? This is one hell of a Kodak moment.

Eva, the scarlet woman, grabs my fiancé’s arse as they kiss, and finally my fight or flight reflex kicks in. As I flee the scene I drop Ruby’s flower crown (it hardly seems important now) and place my hands over my mouth, to stop me crying until I’m out of earshot, and to stop me throwing up all over the flowers.

I run through the hotel without any of the care or attention I left it with, barely fifteen minutes ago. I unlock my phone and the picture is still there on my screen – it doesn’t matter, it’s all I can see. I see it in the art on the walls, in the pattern of the carpet. If I blink, you’d better believe I see a freeze-frame of the two of them together.