I see us bickering, Jack making me a fried egg because he asked if I wanted eggs and I said, ‘ooh yeah, fried please,’ and he hated making fried eggs because he always broke the yolk, but he never told me, just muttered under his breath, passive aggression, which led to us yelling at one another, our first fight, which made us both cry, and – eventually – laugh.

I see Rudolf.

I see the fridge and Jack telling me he’d won a raffle.

I see my hand encased by Jack’s, in a kebab shop near the flat, and we order shish taouk and chips and extra garlic sauce and as we wait, we kiss, like really kiss – snog – and the fella behind the counter mocks us, calls us a pair of lovesick teenagers, and we keep kissing – snogging – our teeth touching because we’re both smiling, bashful yet brazen, a kiss that’s addictive and desperate and ends with sex.

I see the pecks on the cheek, the lips, the neck; busy kisses that get us through busy weeks and that morning peck before rushing off to work. I see the Rice Krispies. I see myself opening the fridge and saying, ‘we’re out of milk again’.

I see Jack.

And then I go.

And I never ever see him again.

‘No, no,’ I sob, heaving with cries, emptying out all I have until there’s nothing left.

I can’t keep looking for something which isn’t here.

I grab hold of the picture again, but I don’t look at the man sat in the shopping trolley. Instead, I turn it around, look at the canvas stretched over the wooden frame. This picture was from the height of our happiness. I’d written him a message, short and sweet, but now faded, smudged. I’d used a pencil – the pen in my satchel had run out of ink before I got through the first letter. The message simply said, of course:

And I reckon I love you, too, Jack Carmichael.

I blink, hard. Thick, satisfying tears drip from my cheeks and splash onto the canvas. Right there, above the words I originally wrote, is another sentence, added later and written in bold capitals, in permanent black marker pen:

I RECKON I LOVE YOU, CHLOE ROSCOE.

This is what we were. What we will always be.

Not love. But almost.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

I’m alive, and at last, I let go.

EPILOGUE

Three months later

‘That’s the last one,’ Si says, relieved.

Lugging boxes up two flights of stairs isn’t Si’s forte. He takes a crumpled tissue from beneath his sleeve and dabs his brow, then checks himself from head to toe in the long mirror on the wall of my bedroom. He turns to the side, sticks out his belly and grabs it, giving the small roll of flab an angry shake.