Jack sits down on the bed and pats the space beside him, so I join him and lean my head on his shoulder. There’s a knot in my stomach that won’t go away and it tightens every time I think of him leaving, not to mention the madness of going to the Blind Generation concert tonight. I could always back out, fake a sickie and no one would bat an eyelid considering my recent frame of mind, but part of me wants to get closure on whatever fears still exist within the depths of my head about Tom Farley and all he represents.

‘Or you could use the time to take up singing and writing songs again?’ Jack suggests. ‘I know you miss your music so badly, Charlotte, and I often wonder if it’s me who has held you back in some way from expressing that side of you.’

He looks deep into my eyes and his familiarity fills me up with such a glow of warmth and safety that makes me miss him already.

‘It’s definitely not you,’ I tell him, and I mean it. ‘You are everything that’s good in my world, Jack. The way you make me feel, the life we have together, this beautiful home we’ve made, and all we have to look forward to fills me up inside. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I just sometimes fear that you could do better than be with someone like me. I’m not sure what I have to offer you any more.’

Jack pushes my hair back off my face and shakes his head.

‘Oh Charlotte, don’t ever say that again, you eejit!’ he says, kissing me on the lips. ‘You are everything to me. You’re my whole world and I still adore you as much as I did when I first laid eyes on you. Everything about you is what I need, and what I want. I just fear there’s something stuck in you. You’re holding back. And I think it’s something to do with why you don’t play or write music any more.’

I swallow hard. There are many perks with being married to a very clever, very handsome doctor but there is always the fact that very little gets past him when it comes to matters of the heart and mind.

I so want to tell him how I feel responsible for Matthew’s accident by getting involved with Tom Farley, and how those feelings of guilt never seem to go away.