‘I’m done walking,’ he said pulling away from her and heading back towards the village. He left her standing there, open-mouthed and not entirely sure what had happened between them. This holiday was going nothing like how she had expected it to.

*

It took three hours, two taxi journeys and too many black refuse bags to count, but by nine o’clock Liv was back in her little flat and there was an undeniable sense of contentment about her, albeit sitting alongside a digging sadness at the idea of ending something that had taken up six years of her life.

A headache – isn’t that what Maya would have said? Could she really compare her relationship with Eddie to an enduring migraine? Anyone would miss a headache if they’d suffered with it for as long as she’d stayed with Eddie. And now, sitting here, sipping a large mug of hot chocolate, she realised that she had stayed with him. He hadn’t made any huge promises. There’d been no agreement between them. She’d just clung on, hoping that it might materialise into something more. She’d held on to something that wasn’t actually hers. All this time, she’d blinded herself to the reality: that she and Eddie were no more compatible than salt and sugar. This was an epiphany and although, initially, it made her wail like a banshee, facing up to it actually made her feel a lot better.

She grabbed a wet wipe from the bathroom and cleaned off her face roughly. Her skin stung and her eyes felt as if they’d dried up with all the crying, but somehow, this sense of being emptied out almost felt as if she was done with getting past the worst. She needed some cheer and, as her little celebration of Christmas had never actually happened, she lit the fire log that had been buried beneath a tonne of Eddie’s old shoes and then switched off all the lights in the flat so she could enjoy her open fire again after all these years. When it took off, she sat back on the sofa, enjoying the flames dancing, the candles lit on the mantelpiece, the peace and quiet of having the place to herself, and yes, maybe she took a certain amount of pleasure in the serenity of knowing that somehow life had just become more authentic for all those tears.

*

The following morning, the alarm clock woke her to the unusual brightness of new snow covering the streets beneath her window. There were a number of things she had to do today, if she was going to make a clean break of things and start this new life that she hoped would open up in some way, to give her, if not the dreams she’d dreamed up until now, then at least a new contentment within herself.

First things first.