‘I totally got that he was your big brother and of course he was worried, but no matter how much I tried to explain to him that to me you were different, he wouldn’t have it,’ says Tom. ‘He was the big boss at the time, it was his band and I had to do what he said if I wanted to keep my place. We were really going places and he made me choose – go after you like I wanted to or stay in the band. At least he said that was why he was mad.’

I bite my lip as it all falls into place. Maybe this isn’t as bad as it seems. Unless there’s more?

‘But there’s no band now, right?’ I say to him. ‘There is no band so none of that matters any more, does it? We can be together now if we want to. It’s nothing to do with Matthew any more.’

I think of my brother and all the times he seemed to stand in my way when in his head he was standing up for me. He was always so super protective and I hated him for it, but maybe he had a point. He saw Tom as a Casanova who would break my heart. He was looking out for me as any big brother would, but that time is over now. We are where we are now. We can live in the present.

‘No, there is no band now, and I’d a big part to play in that too,’ says Tom, dropping his head and looking away. ‘That’s when the story ends, and it wasn’t a happy ending, as you know.’

Oh. So I haven’t heard it all yet. There is more …

‘Why did you guys break up?’ I ask him. ‘Please don’t say it was over me?’

Tom wets his lips with his tongue and exhales long and slow. My stomach hits my mouth.

‘We were having silly rows up until then,’ he continues quickly. ‘There were cracks. Me and Matthew were clashing left, right and centre. He wanted to be the star of the show, I wanted to have more say in what direction we were going in. It was a clash of ego, of power, a real-life case of too many chiefs, and I told him he was jealous, but I always had a feeling it was more than that.’

I dab my nose with a tissue as I try and absorb my part in all of this.

‘Jealous? You mean, jealous of you?’

He bites his lip. ‘Yes, I guess in a way he was jealous of me,’ he says, his eyes heavy now and sad. ‘But not just jealous of me. He was jealous … he was jealous of what me and you could be if we got together.’