‘I’m flying out to join Kattan tomorrow.’ He looked down the drive. ‘I just wanted to say goodbye.’ He drew the blinds.

‘Where is he? Kattan?’ I stared at Danny’s naked back. He was lean in the moonlight, the well-defined muscles, the dip in the small of his back, the black dragon on his shoulder shadowed and smooth, another smaller tattoo on the other bicep, some kind of flag I didn’t recognise. ‘Where is he now?’

‘Abroad. On his way home, I think.’

‘And you’re not here any more either, are you? In spirit, you’re not here?’

‘Not in the way you want me to be, no, I suppose not.’

I wanted to scream ‘Don’t go!’ but I couldn’t speak. I took a deep breath.

‘I think you should leave now, Danny.’

He swung round. ‘I can’t be here, Rose. It’s not that I don’t want to be. It’s just – I can’t.’

‘Whatever. It’s fine.’ I stood quickly and pulled my old sweatshirt back over my head, scraping my hair angrily back from my face. ‘Please, just go.’

How easy it is to say in love the opposite of what is actually meant.

‘If that’s what you want,’ Danny shrugged. ‘I guess you’re right.’

How hard it is to confess what we really feel. To lay ourselves open, on the line.

I stared at him. ‘Could you not even argue?’

He didn’t answer, just got dressed silently. When he left he leaned to kiss me on the mouth, but I moved my head so that his cool lips landed awkwardly on my cheek. He stared down at me and in the half-light I could see the piercing blue of his eyes again, and I felt despair.

And when he left, slipping out of the back door like a furtive lover from some bad farce, I felt so much worse than I had before. I stared out into the dark.

When I went back into the living room, I saw he’d left his old jumper on the sofa, and a stupid lemon sherbet sweet had fallen from his pocket. I picked them up and carried them into the kitchen; I held them above the bin.

I despised myself for wanting him. I despised myself for wishing he had stayed. I hadn’t meant to let him in but he’d got in anyway, like a fine layer of sand beneath my skin, he was there, hurting me because I couldn’t have him and couldn’t rid my head of him. And perhaps I had been greedy and bad, perhaps I deserved the pain. Whichever, I was sure as hell paying for it now.