I’ve been a victim of his lies and shameless self-interest all this time and I didn’t see it. A victim of time passing, time I could have spent with someone else. Time I could perhaps have just spent alone. Working. Living. Learning who I am and what I really want out of life, over and above work. Did he ever love me? Is he even capable of that? And what the hell was this call about? Five years. Wasted.

I’m not sure if it’s the call, the weather, the trees or the lack of sleep, but the air feels heavy. I feel heavy. How do I get over this? You’d think it’d be easy, knowing what I do now. My brain knows it’s time to move on, and my heart does too, I think, but how? How long does it take? When will I stop feeling as though my insides are being squeezed and my heart is dead? How dare he take hold of me so tightly that when he lets go I tumble so wildly out of control? How dare he do that, and how dare I let him. I walk faster. I have to work out how to stop this. I have to work out how to reclaim my life, myself. Who even am I? What defines me? I’ve spent five years living as his girlfriend. Okay, I was Nurse Kat too, but who was I outside of work? I’m almost thirty. Aren’t I supposed to know these answers by now?

I flick my hood up, hiding in the anonymity it provides. The runner from before runs back down, her eyes focused dead ahead. Maybe exercise would help me.

When did I become the kind of woman whose life’s happiness revolves around someone else? When did I give that gift away?

It’s time to take it back. I deserve more.

I deserve better.

My phone rings in my hand and I swipe it open with force. ‘Stop it! Stop calling me. Leave me alone. You don’t deserve me and I want nothing more to do with you!’ I shout. ‘Kat, it’s me.’ ‘Emma? Sorry, I—’‘It’s fine. Look, we have a problem.’ She sounds strained, worse than I feel.

‘You okay? Where are you? Is everything alright with Chris?’ I instantly feel guilty that I’ve spent the hours since I saw her drowning in a vat of self-pity and never once checked if she got home okay.

‘I’m fine – well, no, I’m not, but I’m at work. Kat, it’s Susan.’ I stop, partway up the hill to the park. ‘She’s gone.’‘What? What do you mean?’ I push my hood back from my face.

‘I mean she’s disappeared. I’ve just got in. Rona went through the handover, then I went to check on everyone, and she wasn’t in her bed. I didn’t think anything of it until I came back round a bit later. She still wasn’t there. Gloria said she’d not been there all morning. I checked the bathroom and nothing.’ There’s a beat. ‘Kat, I think Susan’s gone.’