Seth and I had been dating, I guess you’d call it, for about a month when he invited me to spend a weekend with him in Brighton. It was quite a big deal, because the two of us had yet to actually sleep in the same bed together, and I had yet to sleep in a bed alongside any boy. There was just no way my folks would ever have let me do such a thing, and I guess I wanted to wait to respect their wishes – at least that’s the excuse I used. I didn’t want Seth to think that I was frigid and lose interest, but I was also reluctant to do the deed with him in case he then worked out how inexperienced I really was.

Doesn’t that sound absolutely bloody dreadful? I know it does – but at the time, that warped logic made sense to me. And anyway, Seth didn’t put all that much pressure on me – he told me that he was happy to wait. But I knew once we were in Brighton, then he would expect something more than a smooch, and I admit, the idea was scary. No, it was terrifying. But in the way that so many frightening things are, it also exhilarated me. I knew the day it was finally going to happen, and I could prepare myself.

In the end, however, I never did go to Brighton.

Tracey had a fall, bless the clumsy old thing, and so I had to take over running the café while she recovered. It all happened the night before Seth and I were supposed to go off on our romantic weekend for two, and when I met him at Euston Station and told him I wouldn’t be able to come, he was furious. It was the first argument the two of us had ever had, and he was swearing and all sorts, telling me that it was only a stupid job in a café and that I should walk out. Well, that pissed me off, because I had been raised better than that. I knew that I had a duty and that I owed Tracey my loyalty. I would never have dreamt of letting her down when she needed me – not even for Seth – and looking back now, I think it was that which annoyed him the most. In his eyes, I had put the needs of my boss above the needs of my boyfriend, and before he stormed off and left me crying in that station, he told me that I was immature, and disloyal and – worst of all – a tease. I was devastated.

Off he went to Brighton, while I stayed behind and worked, but I could barely concentrate all weekend for thinking about him, and whether he would ever forgive me. But then, when Monday rolled around, the weirdest thing happened – Seth turned up at Sunrise Café just after lunch, fresh off the train and looking damn awful, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair sticking out all over the place. He told me that he’d been feeling like a bastard the whole time he’d been away, and that he was sorry for everything he said to me. Of course, I was over the bloody moon – probably the moons of Saturn. And so relieved not to have lost him that I would have agreed to anything.

And I did.

That night turned out to be ‘the’ night – and afterwards he told me that he loved me, and I said that I loved him, too. And I believed it, I really did. I remember heading to work the next morning and feeling as if the clouds billowed more joyfully. All the dirty pigeons suddenly looked like birds of paradise. I reckon I was skipping, perhaps even singing – the boy I loved, he loved me back, and I was a proper woman at last. I was going to get what I wanted after all and Seth and me would live happily ever after.

That feeling lasted a good fortnight, too. The more time Seth and I spent together, the harder I was falling. I was addicted. I needed my daily fix of him or I would start to twitch. And nothing seemed to faze me then, not Tracey’s injury, not how busy it was at work and how out of my depth I was, not my homesickness – nothing. I felt as if I owned the bloody world.

The only thing that did dent my love euphoria was my mate the professor. He came in one afternoon looking totally ghastly and told me that his wife had moved out. The rows had become too much, he said, and he didn’t know if she would ever come back. There I was, this naive girl, trying her best to comfort this man with all the wisdom of one who has had sex about twelve times in her whole life. How little I knew then about life, and relationships, and marriage. I mean, Jesus, I didn’t know a goddamn thing – but because I was floating around in such a love bubble myself, all I wanted was for everyone else to be the same.

I encouraged the professor to make a grand gesture, to tell his wife that he loved her above all else – because in my mind, it was that simple. Love was mightier than petty arguments – it was an all-conquering force that could heal any rift.

I don’t know whether the professor even listened to me, but he did seem to cheer up when the two of us talked. I even told him about the Brighton row – I probably compared it to his own troubles, which of course only goes to show how young and dumb I was. But that was the thing about the professor – he never made me feel foolish. He treated me like an equal, and I admired him for that. I was so accustomed to being treated like a child by my parents and their friends that it felt nice to be welcomed into the ‘proper adult’ pool, even if I was flailing about in the bloody deep end.

It was during one of our deep and meaningful chats that the professor offered me a room at his house. He and his wife had always taken in student lodgers, but the latest had quit university in the middle of her course, so the room was going spare. It wasn’t much more in rent than I was paying at the hostel, and when he told me that Seth would be allowed to stay over, I practically jumped up and down with excitement. It wasn’t as if I had much stuff to pack, so moving in was easy. By the following weekend, I was living there, and the friendship between me and the professor became even stronger. He was a mate, a good guy. I thought he was one of the best people that I was ever likely to meet.

So, to summarise: I was happy. I had a new home with a landlord who was also a great mate of mine, I was dating a boy I loved, who loved me, and I was enjoying being in charge of the café for a while. Everything was on the up.

Until, one night, when everything came crashing down.