I headed straight for the bedroom. There was so much I wanted to touch, see, after being cut short last time. I followed the scent of your aftershave. Then stopped before entering. Worried there would be something in there I didn’t want to see. Know. But the truth is, there was nothing about you I didn’t want to know. However much it may have hurt.

I exhaled loudly when all appeared comfortingly unchanged. No strewn posh slut’s knickers. No discarded condoms.

The bed was unmade. Duvet thrown back. I patted the sheet for signs of wetness. All was dry and soft, and I crumpled onto it like a marionette. You, my unknowing puppeteer. I pulled your pillow around my head, over my ears, inhaling so deeply my eyes watered. It was all you. No cheap perfume or woman’s sex. Just you.

I closed my eyes. Only for a moment. Yet I could feel my body float away. It would have been so easy to drift into a dream, so I forced myself to sit up, and once again having forgotten to take a photo, I attempted to return the bedding and pillows as before.

Still perched on the edge of the softened mattress, I opened your side drawer. My sweating hands slid over the handle. Eyes closed, I pulled. Prepared myself. But inside were only the familiar things. The copy of Great Expectations. The bookmark no further. An old mobile, ibuprofen, a phone charger, a tin of boiled sweets, a half-finished pack of fags with a lighter stuffed inside, a comb, weaved with strands of your hair, which I brushed against my cheek, then popped into my bag. And finally, the thing that brought me to look there, the box of condoms. My mouth dried as I lifted the flap of the packet. Counted the contents. There were seven. It was a pack of ten. One had been used with me. I convinced myself you must have bought them when you were seeing Fiona and shut the drawer.

En route to the en suite, I passed Laura’s cupboard. Clicked it open. It remained untouched from the first time. I found comfort in that. The fact you weren’t dwelling on what was in there, touching, smelling, like I needed to do. I pushed aside the hangers. The finery mocked me. I hated her and her privilege and had the urge to remove my key and make a hole in the black lace dress, hung like an elegant ballroom dancer. But it was so expensive, pretty, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

My eyes lowered to below the delicate hem.

The box. Your mother’s box.