At least while I’m here, I don’t have to put on a show. Finals are only weeks away and I pretend I am confident but it’s hard work. Mum is distant and cold. For a while, I thought it might be her lupus flaring up, but now I believe she simply can’t forgive me for almost losing Kerry.

Some days I’m not even sure I haven’t lost Kerry after all. She says the right things, encourages me, helps me with test questions, but when she doesn’t think I’m watching, her smile drops and her posture slumps and she looks so tired.

I owe it to them both to qualify. But the idea of what comes next is suffocating.

‘. . . anything to share?’

I drag my eyes away from the window and back to Anya, who is smiling at me.

‘Will they ever forgive me?’ I say.

Anya looks as surprised as I am that I’ve spoken. ‘Who?’

Everyone gawps at me, albeit in an empathetic way. I don’t want to share my innermost fears with these strangers. But who else am I meant to share them with?

‘My girlfriend. My mother.’

More silence. I know this is how it works: give the speaker the floor, let them take their time. ‘My girlfriend put everything on hold for my work and in return, I started using. Lying. Sometimes I think she must really hate me.’

‘Hate is a very strong word,’ Anya says. ‘What makes you think she feels that way?’

It’s nothing she’s done. At New Year, Kerry told me she was as determined as I am to try – really try – to make our relationship work and she surely wouldn’t have promised me that if she hated me. Yet as I picture her face, all I can see is unhappiness. Nothing I do or say seems to reach her. Today is her birthday, and I have bought flowers and the ingredients to cook her favourite mushroom risotto when she gets home from her shift.

Yet already I know I will see something in her eyes that tells me it’s not enough.

‘Because nothing’s turned out the way it was supposed to. We were meant to be high fliers, both of us. Instead, I’m a recovering addict and she’s miserable.’

‘You’re young,’ says the man who greeted me when I first arrived. ‘I don’t mean to patronize you but if your relationship doesn’t work out, there will be so many other chances.’

Except I don’t fantasize about other women. I fantasize about being alone, with no obligation to make anyone better.

There’s coffee after the session. I don’t usually hang around but talking about the situation at home has made me want to stay out a little longer.

‘You were brave.’