And I should probably say here that I’m sorry for my part in it. I really am sorry for what a mess this has turned out to be, and for the actions I took that led us here.

But apologising isn’t an explanation, as you’ve told me before. So here’s everything, and it starts a lot further back than you might think. With the night we met, which was obviously also the night I met April. Though, in fact, there were three of you I met that night, and all of you came to dominate my life in a way I could never have predicted.

As much as you might want to believe that you started our story, it’s abundantly clear to me that it was April Dumont who started it. Even you can’t deny the power she has. Everyone was watching her during the wedding, from the moment she stomped in late, with her dress that showed off her midriff (and the side of each breast too, just in case that wasn’t enough). They stared at her tattoos. At her high-heeled cowboy boots that were the coolest fucking thing I had ever seen.

I bet you winced at that, didn’t you? I bet if you were reading this in front of me, you’d roll your eyes and ask me if that kind of language was necessary.

Well, I’m afraid it is, my darling. This is a fuck kind of a story from start to finish, though I honestly will try to spare you whenever I can. I want you to keep reading, Niall. I really do.

So, back to that wedding, when I was still a meek, anxious, painfully shy person. I’ve often wondered what I would have turned out like if my darling mum had lived a little longer. If I’d spent my teenage years with her, instead of with my increasingly neurotic, messily grieving father. If I’d had someone to tell me how great I was. I might have been a confident, talkative young woman. I might have been sexy.

But there’s no point wondering about that, really. I wasn’t confident, or talkative, or sexy. I was shy and awkward and frightened of attention.

At least I was before April. Before my life was picked up and turned luminous by the cowboy-booted girl who made her noisy way up the aisle, ignoring all the other free seats, and came to sit next to me. Next to mousy little me.