I sat in the chair nearest the door and wrung my hands together, hunching over my damp knees while Stew kept his very steady gaze on the television. It would have been easier to go upstairs, change out of my wet clothes, eat some shepherd’s pie and deal with all of this tomorrow. Or at the weekend. Or five years from now.

‘Sorry, I need to talk to you,’ I said, forcing out each word, one after the other. If I didn’t speak now, I never would. I reached for the remote control to turn off the TV and Stew blinked at the screen as it turned black, his jaw set so tight I was worried he might crack a tooth.

‘Talk about what?’

‘Us,’ I replied, my heels bouncing up and down on his nana’s carpet.

‘What about us?’ he asked. ‘What exactly is there to talk about?’

It was a classic Stew Bingham avoidance tactic. Ignore a problem until someone else bought it up, then blame them for its existence; it was the relationship equivalent of ‘whoever smelt it, dealt it’. No wonder men were so good at gaslighting, we’d been teaching them how to do it from birth.

But not this time.

‘We’ve got to talk about what’s going on.’ I forced myself to meet his eyes across the room, but his face was cold and stiff and I had to look away. ‘I don’t think we’re very happy and I don’t think we’ve been happy for a while.’

His phone lit up on the arm of the settee. He glanced at the screen, turned it over then glared back at me. ‘Oh, have we not been happy? Please don’t put words in my mouth.’

‘OK, you’re right, I’m not happy.’ I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat, determined to say my piece. ‘I thought it was just a phase, but it’s been like this for a long time and I don’t think it can get better unless we talk about it.’

Stew looked down at the floor, suddenly very interested in his slippers, and I sat and waited for him to speak, listening to the sounds of the living room. The rain beating against the window, the washing machine churning in the kitchen, the thermostat clicking into action and the whoosh of the central heating that followed right behind. Familiar sounds that used to be comforting but now felt like threats.

‘What do you want me to say?’ Stew said. ‘Couples fight. Then they apologize and move on.’

I rubbed a finger under my eye, attempting to dislodge some of the smeared mascara and failing miserably. ‘I don’t want you to apologize—’