‘Constance . . . I want to help. If there’s something you think you did as a young child that made your father leave, it might be good to say.’

‘For Christ’s sake . . . I let go, OK. I let him go.’

I stood. The tissue fragments floated to the floor. ‘I’m very sorry for shouting, Dr Franco, but I really do need to be going now. It’s bad for me not to eat anything.’

‘Of course. I understand.’

I didn’t look at him as I retrieved my bag, collected the tissue pieces, but I could feel his gaze upon me right until I reached the door.

‘Constance . . . I hope we can talk again, and that you have taken something from today?’

Poor Dr Franco. I envisaged him being quite worried about me when I left his room. Though he needn’t have been. As I strode down the corridor, through reception, into the freedom of the cool air, I felt so much clearer. Not because my guilt had been alleviated but because it cemented what I already knew.

If you love someone, never let them go.

From that point …

From that point on, you acted as though nothing had happened.

When asking for a coffee or requesting a file, you behaved as though we’d not recently kissed each other’s lips, that you hadn’t been inside me, squeezed my half-naked body as it beat against the jagged brickwork of an alley wall. Hadn’t looked me in the eye and told me you missed me. So I had no choice but to accept you really didn’t know.

I never disclosed the truth. Fluctuating between thankfulness for you not remembering me in that humiliating way and uncertainty it even happened at all.

I performed my role with aplomb. You would never have known that when my eyes opened each morning, you were my first thought. That accompanying that thought was an agitation which increased throughout the day. How every non-intimate conversation you led cut me, diced me.

And you had no idea that after we’d say goodbye at the end of each day, I’d follow you home.

Initially I’d convinced myself it was accidental. That I was merely having a cigarette in the corner by the steps. That you happened to be leaving and I was too slow to catch you up. After all, I was only walking home, taking the same route. It was perfectly acceptable. If you’d turned around, I would’ve smiled, explained how you hadn’t heard me shouting due to your headphones. But after a few times I didn’t need to convince myself of anything. Because I didn’t care.

I needed it.

In the same way I needed nicotine.

I often question what I gained from seeing you perpetually walk away from me.