‘Do you have any idea how hard it was on me when you ended things?’ he asked, standing up and walking over to the front door to retrieve his pants. I was both proud and uncomfortable in equal measures. ‘I never got in touch with you because I didn’t want to hear all about your new life and your new friends and – at the risk of sounding pathetic – new men, while you left me behind.’

I opened my mouth to speak but had no idea what to say. When I ended things?

He slipped into the bathroom, ran the tap for a moment then returned in his boxer shorts. ‘I’ve been wondering ever since if I’d hear from you.’

‘I didn’t end things with you,’ I said slowly. ‘I told you I had been offered the job in DC, then you said I should take it and it would be better for us to have a clean break.’

‘Yeah, because I’m a shit man with a massive ego and I couldn’t stand the rejection,’ he said, looking at me as though I was the one who was being obtuse. ‘Christ, Ros, I thought you might suggest we try long distance or something but no, you agreed with me straight away. You wanted to leave without the baggage. I get it, that’s fine, but don’t make me out to be the villain when you’re the one who left.’

I felt as though I’d been punched. Had I agreed with him? I didn’t remember it that way. I certainly had not said I wanted to leave without baggage. I very much wanted baggage, I wanted Patrick-shaped baggage more than an Away suitcase and I wanted an Away suitcase so badly. Bloody Facebook advertising. What I remembered, was the feeling that the world was ending and, as I recalled, I didn’t say much of anything. I told him about the job, he told me I should go and I ran out the door, only stopping to cry in the street before I flagged down a cab.

‘You could have told me you didn’t want me to go,’ I said. I reached for my dress and draped it over my body, too vulnerable to be so naked.

Patrick sat down on the edge of his bed and sighed. ‘And tell you not to take the job? What kind of a shit would that make me?’

‘You said it was good timing because you were going travelling,’ I reminded him. ‘You said it was for the best.’

‘I did go travelling,’ he confirmed. ‘And then I came back. Alone.’

I folded myself up like a deckchair, arms wrapped around my legs, hands knotted together around my shins. Even though it was still hot and sticky in his flat, I suddenly felt a chill.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I admitted.