If I hadn’t left with him, if I’d gone back inside to my friends, I needn’t ever have mentioned his name again.

If I hadn’t come home to tell Matthew when I did, this would never have happened.

So many decisions, made by me, that led to this horror right now. And yet, no matter what is going on or how much I can dish the blame on myself, I still want to see Tom again so badly. I’ve never felt so alone and I need his strength and how he makes me feel so safe and strong like no one else can.

Emily and Kevin have gone for a cuppa in the canteen a few floors down, Mam and Dad are literally propping each other up and I’m standing here on my own up against a hard wall. I’m so confused in my thoughts and wanting the one person whose name drove Matthew into such a state in his head that he jumped into his car and had a head-on collision just two miles out of the village. Where on earth he thought he was going, we might never know.

I check my phone, my thumbs lingering on the touchscreen over the phone, longing to tell Tom what happened but afraid to at the same time in case he blames himself. There’s more to this, I know that by now, but I’ve no idea as to what that could be.

‘You must be Emily?’

I look to my right to see a handsome stranger extending a strong hand out to me. He’s wearing a three-quarter-length navy woollen coat, his auburn hair is flicked to the side and his face is grey with worry.

‘Martin?’ he says as if I should already have guessed. I must have the appearance of a startled rabbit because he drops his hand after I give him a very limp handshake.

‘I’m Charlotte, not Emily,’ I explain. ‘I’m sorry, have we met before, Martin?’

He looks down at my mother and father to say hello but they’re too busy praying to even notice he’s here.

‘Charlotte, of course,’ he says. ‘Matthew has told me all about you. You’re the very talented teacher, yes? God, this is a nightmare, isn’t it?’

We glance at the theatre door where doctors are operating on Matthew as if the door can give us answers but it’s just a waiting game for now.

All we know is that Matthew’s car spun off the road following a head-on collision with a people carrier – a mother and her children who were on their way home from seeing Santa. His head injuries are severe, theirs aren’t life-threatening, thank goodness, but Matthew is going to take the guilt of this to his grave should he survive it at all.