My foot dropped from the kerb. My other joined it. A car sped by. I stood in the road. Horns beeped. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if they hit me, because I just wanted to be with her. I glided across. Vehicles sliced around me. I was so near. Almost on the other side. A man shouted from his van window, but he didn’t understand that I didn’t care. I stepped up onto the pavement. Carried on until I was right in front of her. I lifted my hand to touch her face, her warm face, which had already faded from my mind. I was crying. Happy tears. She cried too. Smiling.

Then everything turned cold.

My hand was touching the glass of a shop window. She was nowhere. There was only me, staring back at myself.

According to Dale, …

According to Dale, a kindly cab driver named Mohammed walked me, ghost-like and clutching my prescription, to the door.

Though I have no recollection, Dale saw me into bed and went off in search of a late-night chemist. After taking an antibiotic, I slipped into a delirious slumber, in which I apparently stayed, aside from being woken for sips of water and additional tablets, until the Saturday evening.

With my fever broken, I found the energy to sit up and gaze blankly at an old episode of Lewis on TV. I had no idea what was going on, who’d been murdered or why. It was just nice to feel relatively normal.

But with consciousness came memories. The baby. The fall. The kiss. Imagining the family photograph that I’d soon endure every time I’d bring you coffee.

Dale didn’t leave my room. It stank of illness, but was at least tidier, as he’d picked stuff off the floor while tutting and saying things like ‘Why don’t you hang your clothes up when you take them off?’ and ‘When we get our own flat, you can’t be like this, you know.’

Though thankful for his care, I found his presence claustrophobic. I craved solitude. To cry. Scream. Hurt. But I couldn’t do anything except pretend I was fully there. Listening to him. Watching Lewis.

There was at least some respite on the Sunday. Dale had to go to his parents’ anniversary dinner. Thirty years. Imagine that. I wonder how I’ll feel about you in thirty years.

I’d been invited along, but he insisted I was too ill and should rest. As Mum would say, Silver linings. Always silver linings.

He’d convinced me to have a shower, rinse away the disease that oozed from every pore. As I scrubbed at my greasy hair and sticky body, thoughts of you swilled down the plughole with the grubby froth.