The longer we went without talking, the more often I found myself thinking: So, this is what life would be like. I tried to call Rowan three times after Monty left but there was no answer and, as the day went on, no written replies either. He’d been on WhatsApp – curse the person who invented that feature – and I’d even gone as far as typing out a message on there, too, but I resisted the urge to hit send. He doesn’t want to talk to you, I reminded myself as I muted the handset and carried on with what was left of the afternoon. In a manner that felt like a shitty remake of Groundhog Day, I found myself repeating the same process the following morning – and the morning after that. On the third day, though, it wasn’t the thought of Rowan not wanting to talk to me that put me off; instead, it was the timestamp for when he was last online. Four hours earlier: 3.28 a.m.

I threw my phone down on the table and set about making breakfast. But the wave of gratitude I felt when the handset started to ring was embarrassing. I leapt on it like it was a gold-dusted chocolate bar, gifted to me in the midst of a rowdy bout of PMS. ‘Oh, but of course it isn’t him.’ I hit the green key. ‘Mum, you’re calling early—’

‘I saw you were online on the WhatsApp so I thought I’d call, check in.’

I smiled. Is this what everyone does now? ‘It’s just WhatsApp I think, Mum.’ I pulled bread from the bin on the work surface and dropped two slices in to toast. ‘I was just looking for whether the girls were about at all.’

‘You don’t have plans with them?’

I could hear the eager note in her voice and so help me I had to say, ‘Oh, I do, I just wasn’t sure who was up yet, whether anyone wanted breakfast before the Saturday shopping spree.’ It was a lie; a whopping one actually, given that I’d told the girls I wanted a quiet day to myself. They were on standby in case my quiet day turned into a minor meltdown though; Betty’s words, not mine. But it didn’t feel like too much of a stretch, as possibilities went.