‘This no one?’ he said. He threw my notebook on the table in front of me. ‘This is real, isn’t it, Rose?’ His face was taut with anger. ‘It’s not bloody fiction, is it?’

It was inevitable, that was the terrifying thing right from the moment I first saw you, Danny, we locked eyes and we both knew, though how can you know, some would say, how can you know immediately like that. But we did, there was no explanation. We just did. We moved nearer and then further away in fear, but all the time we waited we were heading for this moment, like we were on some kind of fatal course. And the first time you touched me you put your hand on me and it was like a surge of electricity and neither of us said anything but all night I felt it. I would have stayed close, couldn’t bear to be separated until we had to be. Until we had to go home alone.

I looked up at James and I felt the world beneath my feet starting to tilt, sliding away until I felt like I was falling.

‘This is you, isn’t it? All this time you said your writing was work but it’s not. It’s been really happening, hasn’t it?’ His eyes were glazed and black, like he’d been drinking or snorting something. He’d lost all rationale; he was spitting with fury. ‘You fucking bitch.’

He slapped me so hard I fell backwards off my chair. I didn’t see it coming; I was too unprepared to save myself. I went crashing into a crate, trying to protect my face as I went.

And as I fell, it seemed like it was in slow motion. As I fell, all I could hear around me was the sound of breaking glass.

PART TWO

Chapter Nineteen

Remember tonight … for it is the beginning of always.

Dante

I move through the room like a ghost. I feel like a ghost, though I know I must have shape and form because people seem to see me; they smile and greet me and I smile back. I keep moving onwards and I smile over and again, I pour the wine and our guests are laughing, kissing me, touching my bare arm. ‘Congratulations!’ someone says with enthusiasm, and I nearly say ‘For what?’ but I don’t. I don’t question it: I just thank them quietly instead.