Closure, I decide. And answers. Yes, answers to all the questions in my mind so I can finally let him go. But what if I do actually meet him and he’s still all I ever dreamed him to be? What if those feelings I’ve buried inside of me rise to the surface and what if … what if he still feels the same about me, too? Then what would I do? Would I actually leave Jack for him?

Can I even compare him to Jack? No I can’t. They are totally different people, who move me in totally different ways. With Jack I feel comfort, laughter, friendship, a deep and meaningful love that I know will last forever, yet there’s this itch I just cannot scratch. With Tom all I feel is an empty hole inside me that I’m convinced only he can fill. But what if this all backfires and I’m left broken-hearted over Tom all over again while he moves on with his gazelle-like fiancée? I’d be left licking my wounds while Jack sails off into the sunset telling me to, quite rightly, stuff our marriage and all our plans for the future.

I toss and turn all night, and reach for my phone the minute I wake up the next morning. Still nothing.

I go for a walk around the village. I have tea with Mary and pretend that I’m fine, even though she repeatedly tells me that I don’t look one bit fine. I admire Oscar in the window to try and divert the conversation. It doesn’t work.

‘You’ve bags beneath your eyes that would carry a Kardashian’s luggage, and every time I see you, you resemble a ghost with your pasty white face. You’re not fine, but all I can do is look out for you. That’s all.’

On Mary’s advice, and in a bid to ‘rest my head and heart’, I sit out on the deck at the back of our house and paint a picture. It’s meant to be some horses in a field but it more closely resembles two Womble-type figures with noses that are way too pointy to be any animal I’ve ever seen in real life. I should stick to teaching and singing, I decide.

I even pick up my guitar, hoping the angst I’m feeling right now might spur on some magical melodies and words of wisdom, but it doesn’t. Instead I find myself once again playing songs that even my brother is probably tired of singing to students and tourists in Galway, just for the sake of playing something.