I stayed where I was that night, unable to face curling up next to you. So when you woke me, you thought I’d stumbled in and slept right there on the music-room sofa.

The fact that you were angry with me about it was the unfairest part. You gave me a cold look when you woke me and asked if I wanted breakfast, as if I’d been the one who’d done wrong.

God, I wanted to throw it in your face. But I was too scared to find out that we were over. Isn’t that pathetic?

So I said nothing when you got at me. I didn’t apologise. I didn’t argue. I ate the breakfast you gave me and said nothing at all, and I think something in that eventually got to you, didn’t it? Because after I’d gone to shower and got myself dressed and told you I was going out, you suddenly turned to me and wrapped me in a hug and apologised. You said that you loved me and it was concern that made you act like an arsehole sometimes.

Later on, you saw the blisters on my heels and bandaged them up. You kissed me gently and told me you’d fix me up somehow.

I guess you remember that bit, and how we had two weeks after that which felt like the old us. Two weeks where we were fine. Happy. The best of friends who told each other everything (except not quite everything).

But it was all false. I was sure that your good behaviour was nothing but guilt. I wanted desperately to look at your communications but was too frightened, and so, as a coping strategy, I became increasingly obsessed with tidiness and order. I would sometimes catch you watching me clean, an expression on your face like you wondered what on earth you were doing with me.

And, as the two of us fell apart, the other me returned, too. It was just one night at first. A single night off while I let myself enjoy Drunk Louise taking over.

But the thing I’ve now learned about her is that it’s never just one night. Once Drunk Louise has me again, she doesn’t like to let go.

15

Damian punched the steering wheel again, letting fury seep into him. Revelling in the rage.

Everything about his relationship with Juliette had made him feel worse about himself. He could see that now. That was why he’d needed to spend so much to feel better. And it was why he’d been messaging other women.

Juliette was poison. That was what it came down to. Her apparent sympathy for him had quickly been revealed as cold judgement. Every decision he’d made had been resisted, bloody-mindedly. And she’d belittled him in public, too, by flirting with other men.