‘How can you say that, Tom?’ I asked him. ‘You know I’m going through hell over what happened, no matter how much I’m told to just let it go and move on. I’m not saying never, I’m just saying not now. A few more months is all it will take. The doctor said—’

‘You have to let go of this stupid guilt!’ he told me. ‘It’s unhealthy and it’s gone on far too long. You didn’t get behind the wheel of a car that day, Matthew did! He’s held you back before and now he’s doing it again.’

A few more months, I promised him. But in a few more months, so much changed. The phone calls became less and less frequent. I was spending more and more time with Jack over coffee, then over lunch, and while his words of wisdom were all about Matthew’s hope for the future, all Tom and I seemed to do was argue about when Matthew was going to stop holding me back.

‘I’m heading out for drinks with some of the guys from the record company,’ Tom told me one Sunday evening in late September when I was watching Strictly Come Dancing at home alone. The fire was lit and Kirsty had gone out on a date with some guy she’d met at the gym. I’d poured a glass of wine and I fancied a chat with Tom, determined not to go over the same old nonsense like a broken record. His American tour had been and gone, he was back in London again, we still hadn’t met up and the gap between us was getting wider and wider.

‘Oh, I won’t keep you then,’ I said, apologizing for interrupting his plans. ‘I’ll chat to you later in the week. Have fun!’

The butterflies in my tummy I normally felt when we had more positive conversations had now turned into creepy, crawly spiders.

‘No, no, it’s fine,’ he said, half-heartedly. ‘Chat away. I’m just getting ready. I can put you on loudspeaker as I get dressed.’

I pictured him, choosing his outfit for his night on the town, and I felt the gap between us getting wider and wider than ever, physically and emotionally. I felt my stomach go sick. This was it, I knew it.

‘So tell me, how’s life in the Fair City this week?’ he asked. ‘What’s going down?’

I could hear him rummaging around, humming along to music while he searched for whatever he needed for his night out.

I, in the meantime, looked around the living room, wondering what excitement there was to inform him of. I longed to be able to run to him, but I knew it was already too late – the moment I had dreaded, the moment I knew would challenge us one day, had come.