My chest sank as I exhaled, an impossible weight lifting from around my shoulders but somehow dragging me down at the same time. It was a release and a betrayal, something I’d never said out loud before. But if you couldn’t tell the truth to a devastatingly handsome stranger you were never going to see ever again, who could you tell the truth to? A tear slid down my cheek and this time I didn’t try to wipe it away.

‘I hardly ever talk about her,’ I said. ‘I think about her all the time, but I never, ever talk about her. Am I crazy? Is that just me?’

Evan shook his head.

‘People always avoid mentioning my mom, like they’re afraid it might upset me when I would love to hear their stories about her. After my mom died, I was really angry. Like, smash up my dad’s car, punch out a window, almost expelled from school angry. It took a long time and a lot of my dad’s money to admit I was mad at her for leaving me. One of my therapists said that was why I was, uh, I think Ethelinda used the term “a passionate adventurer”. I was so afraid of being left again, I didn’t give anyone the opportunity. If you’re not really there in the first place, how can they leave you?’

‘Or maybe they’ll stay if you give up everything to make them happy,’ I said softly. ‘Even if it makes you miserable.’

‘Two sides of the same coin,’ he said, placing his hand on top of mine. ‘But we have choices, nothing is set in stone. You’re not your mom, I’m not my dad. We’ve got to be brave enough to ask ourselves what we really want, then go after it.’

I could be brave.

I’d been brave when I called Vine & Walsh, when I told Stew I was taking the job, when I got on the train to London. Being brave meant changing things, and I was deeply afraid of change but what was worse, facing my fears or choosing unhappiness? I’d lived like this for so long, I’d got so good at it. And now someone was suggesting it didn’t have to be that way.

‘It’s easy to make promises on a night like this,’ I said, looking out over the sea. ‘But things will be different when I wake up tomorrow and I have to go back to the real world.’