Then it came. ‘Constance. Dear Constance. Would you like to fuck?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Would you like to fuck?’

Floored, scared and unable to think of a more repulsive prospect, I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable, so I said, ‘I’m really very tired, Rupert, but thanks anyway,’ then went to my room, locking the door behind me.

In bed, I pulled my knees to my chest, foetal, and squeezed Blusha with more intensity than ever before. Not only because of Rupert but because it hit me. The gradual drip, drip, drip from which I was running. As I bit Blusha’s ear to transfer my pain onto her, I realized I was completely alone. Unprotected. Unloved. If Rupert had added me to his skull collection, no one would have noticed. No one would have cared. That was my new reality. Immersed under the covers, I allowed myself to cry for the first time since I’d left home. This must have somehow carried me into a deep sleep because the clock said 03.07 when I woke to the rattle of my doorknob turning frantically, followed by the thud of a foot kicking against the wood. By 03.09 this stopped. By 04.30 my case was packed, and by 05.00, when I could hear definite snoring from the next room, I left. By 14.00 that day I’d moved into Lynton Road, and by 20.00 Dale and I were friends.

It’s hard being friends with someone who doesn’t truly know you. What you really are. But he was the only person in the world I had. The only person who cared.

Dale thoroughly enjoyed the film. I thought it was pretentious crap.

We were still arguing about it on the bus home.

‘But he loved her,’ he repeated for the hundredth time.

‘So?’ I repeated for my hundredth time, each one increasing in volume, intensity. For that last one I half stood up to say it. ‘He was just some nutter who sat watching her, obsessed. She didn’t even know him.’

‘Not all men can tell a girl he likes her, you know.’

‘Then the poor cow is in a coma and he shags her. No, no, rapes her.’

‘But he did love her.’

The cycle began again until I broke it with ‘Loving someone doesn’t excuse everything, you know.’

‘You’ve never even been in love, Constance.’

‘So?’ This ‘So?’ was considerably quieter than my previous ones, and I remained firmly seated to say it. ‘You haven’t either. You told me.’

He turned away. His usually soft marshmallow face stony in the window’s reflection.

I sat back and looked out towards the insane, lit-up London that I’d never feel part of. And as I did, against my will, your face strobed my mind.

The next morning …

The next morning it was still you who occupied my thoughts.

Not Dale. Not even poor Dr Williams.