As an accountant you took pride in your end-of-year financial reports. Who knew you’d been keeping tabs on our private life, too? You were unsatisfied with your return on investment, as it were, so you were chucking me. Well, we hadn’t exactly been focusing on team building, had we? When was the last time you’d taken me out for dinner? I did say that. My voice sounded nasal and pedantic, and I revelled in it, trusting my outrage to guide me as I talked, prodded you – another mistake.

I said to you, ‘Go on. Tell me more about your notes on our relationship. You want a reward? For being so meticulous. You want a gold star?’

I slammed the palm of my hand against your heart. You stumbled backwards and I saw something in your eyes that I’d never seen before, and couldn’t name.

I looked down and I remember noticing my hands and that I still had my rubber gloves on. My yellow arms looked stupid. I hated them. And then you hugged me and I stood deflated in your arms.

‘Listen, Ruth,’ you said. ‘I don’t mean to hurt you. I cannot bear to see you hurt.’ And though I registered the official tone – its eeriness, its uncompressed, regular syllables – I let you continue.

There are bits that I can’t remember: holes, where the fabric of our conversation is stretched so thin that I can see through to the other side. I can see last night’s Ruth pulling her hair back into a too-tight ponytail; these same strands, thick with sweat, glued to my temples, my cheeks, my top lip, as I wake up alone in our bed.

Home, marriage, kids. You thought there was more to life than just that. You weren’t putting the blame on me. You were willing to take responsibility for your own actions. Throughout our relationship, you’d been the one responsible for both of us, and here you were, once again, doing just that, finally addressing all the fucked-up shit in it. You might as well take the blame for it all – really it was your fault, though purely for going along with things for so long. Hadn’t you bought me a ring, taken me on holiday, produced a bottle of champagne at the restaurant, even got down on one knee in the restaurant car park? Why the car park? For privacy. You thought public marriage proposals were tacky. Didn’t I? Of course I did.

Your face slackened with pity. Poor little Ruth. You stroked my forehead gently with your thumb. That’s when I knew you were going to leave me.