I just had to get to the end of term, I told myself. I was exhausted, that was all – Matty was right that I always got run down at the end of a school term and the spring term was the worst, after a long winter. Easter always felt late even when it was early: the grey of March, the April rains to come. I was on my hands and knees to the finishing line. And then there was Venice. We had both paid for our own flights and half the hotel each and they were non-refundable. I had been looking at images of Murano glass online, and it was as if there was a life waiting in the future, where Matty and I would be how we were at the beginning of our relationship, and we would live together in a house with the walls painted white and a beautiful twisted vase on top of a cabinet, in front of a mirror perhaps. It would have reds and purples and blues and reflect the light when the sun shone through the window. It would have a tiny flaw, an elongated bubble near its base, but nobody would know about the flaw apart from me.

*

‘It’s not my fault if you’re so insecure.’ It was most nights, now.

‘Look, I get it, okay. You are an only child. You’re just not used to sharing, are you? Not your fault, but really, it’s something you ought to work on.’

‘Do you ever get tired of talking about yourself?’

‘You know what your problem is? You think too much.’

*

The weekend before Easter, on the Saturday, Matty rose out of bed and said, ‘I’m going for a run, I’ll be back in half an hour.’ Saturday breakfasts, Saturday sex: these were things of the past.

Half an hour went by, an hour, two hours, three. We had been planning on going to the shops – we were going to look at some kitchenware in John Lewis. We had agreed we should go early to avoid the Saturday crowds. I didn’t know whether to go on my own, leave him a note, or whether the trip was off altogether. If I went on my own when he wanted to come along, it wouldn’t go down well. I showered and dressed. Of course I could go on my own, I thought – but I felt paralysed by indecision. He might be about to walk in the door any minute, after all. For a while, I waited for him to come back so we could breakfast together, then I ate a piece of toast. I Whatsapped him a couple of times but although the messages were received he didn’t read them. I didn’t know what to do.

It was gone half past twelve when I heard his key in the door.