I huffed. ‘You should be. Lily is vicious and Betty’s always thought you’d let me down.’ It was true, too. The nearer we’d got to university, the more Betty thought that adulthood would crack Rowan somehow. She’d never said cheat – but she wouldn’t have been wrong. ‘What’s happened stays between us.’

‘Does that mean—’

‘It means that what happened stays between us.’ I pushed my hair back from my face and let my fingers lock together behind my neck. I could feel the tense and twitch of muscles as my body clenched and unclenched. ‘I want a bath.’

‘I can run you a bath?’ He shot up from his seat.

‘You can leave.’

‘Edi—’

‘Did I stutter?’

He apologised three times. There had been countless apologies before that and it crossed my mind that I should have kept a tally. Cora and Betty, on a boozy night in, had made a boyfriend-bingo that listed various fuck-ups in all their forms – and the apologies that came after them. Rowan must have been quite high-ranking in a game like that, I thought, and it nearly made me laugh. But what a terrible game to win at.

‘Will we get through this?’ He looked at the floor as he asked the question.

I crossed the room in quiet and unhooked the lock on the front door. ‘I don’t know.’

Chapter 10

Now

Instead of using my work hours for actual work, I used it for painful introspection. I created a document on my desktop with an innocuous title but contained within there was …

It took me three days to build that table. During which time I ignored calls from the girls, and told Rowan five times that I needed to think. But after days of thinking, what I needed was time to talk. On my way out of work I sent an SOS message to the group chat. By the time I arrived home, Molly was already outside my building. She was leaning back against the wall with her phone pressed to her ear. Her other hand was flat against her forehead. I didn’t catch any of the conversation, apart from the hurried goodbye – ‘No, Edi’s here now … See you soon, yep …’ – but she looked panicked. I felt dreadful, because it crossed my mind she might be having a crisis bigger than the crisis I’d called her over here for. Then we could ignore my problem entirely and focus on whatever had made Molly look like her last slab of cheddar had gone off in the fridge.

‘Edi, what’s happening?’ She held me by the shoulders. ‘Are your parents okay?’