There was no such thing as love at first sight. Look at her and Eddie. They’d known each other for years and there hadn’t been any fireworks, just a gentle easing in, a rubbing along to the point that they arrived where they were now. So, Liv had tried to focus on that instead. She listed off the reasons that she had to consider herself lucky. She thought about that beautiful ring, imagining it on her finger and then knowing that even though Eddie would have picked up the emeralds at cost, it still would have taken a lot of work and effort to fashion it out properly. She smiled in the darkness, seeing it in her mind’s eye. It was delicate and intricate and cold when she slipped it on her finger, but it fitted perfectly and it touched her beyond belief that he’d somehow managed to get her size right, although she’d never had a piece of jewellery for that finger to measure it against.

It was no good. In the end, she got out of bed. It was officially St Stephen’s Day and at five o’clock in the morning, she’d already spent an hour pacing about the flat. She looked at the pile of hardbacks she’d bought and wrapped for Maya for the holidays. She could open one – Maya certainly wouldn’t mind – but she knew she couldn’t settle to reading. She couldn’t settle into anything, because she should be at home in Ballycove, with her family. And then, she realised that there was only one other place she could go that would maybe make her feel a little better.

Outside the morning was cold and dark. Soft flakes of snow drifted across the city streets. She’d pulled on her hiking boots, folded her uniform into a large shopper and headed out into the deserted streets. It was funny, but somehow, out here, she felt less lonely. The roads were completely empty, all of the buildings closed up, flats in darkness and even the green man on the traffic lights, it seemed, had turned in for the night.

The hospital, however, was not deserted. Liv felt that familiar blast of warm air cascade down on her as she walked through the main doors. She wasn’t on shift for another two hours, although, probably, they wouldn’t turn her away if she arrived early. Instead of walking towards A&E she made her way up the stairs and padded along the endless, noiseless corridors until she came to the intensive care unit. At the nurses’ station she spotted a nurse she remembered from a training event earlier in the year: Morgan. She waved at him and he buzzed her through.