And then I couldn’t see straight. In my head I ran through the first-aid emergency checklist. I ticked all the boxes, over and over again in my frenzy, finishing and then starting again from the beginning: clammy skin, shallow breathing, tachycardia, hypothermia. I slumped against the dry goods cupboard. You were calculating the hours we’d spent decorating versus the times I didn’t want to practise tantric sex. We didn’t even own our own place yet. I mean, I wouldn’t even try anal sex.

You were tired of waiting for your life to kick into motion.

That’s when I started laughing.

‘You’re a fucking cunt,’ I said. ‘You’re a fucking hypocrite cunt.’

Where did that come from? People say stuff they don’t mean when they’re angry.

I know now that it was the cue you’d been waiting for. I fell for it.

‘If that’s what you think about me, Ruth, it’s fucking over.’

Things moved quickly after that. You were angry, wired, efficient. You pulled books off the shelves and slammed them into our laundry basket, like it was just a thing for carrying other things and not something that had held your clothes tangled with mine. I staggered after you as you moved through the house, your anger throbbing, turning surfaces inside out. You grabbed an armful of underwear, kept shouting that you knew it, you fucking knew it all along and what was the point in being reasonable with people like me, what was the point in even trying to explain when it was obvious I wasn’t willing to understand. I only looked like I was. Nothing ever went in.

You dragged your suitcase from the bottom of the wardrobe. You opened it and I looked inside. I saw it was already half packed. The numbing epiphany that you’d been making arrangements, that you weren’t acting on impulse but carrying out a plan.

When I managed to speak, I asked a stupid question.

‘Have you met someone else?’

‘You’re ridiculous,’ you shouted from the bathroom. ‘Do you ever listen to a word I say?’

I found you in front of the mirror with the electric clippers.

‘There’s a mindfulness commune in Cornwall,’ you said. ‘Very selective. I’ve been accepted and I’m going tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ I said.

‘God knows I could do with some peace of fucking mind.’

The sink filled up with your thin yellow hair.