Eve and I had over a decade of friendship. I would have to wait a long time to get that with Ben.

As I shifted to a comfortable position, something about this morning felt different. I was always pretty comatose by bedtime so I wasn’t ever aware of Ben getting into bed, but as I lay my hand on his side of the bed, it felt cold. He had either got up very early or hadn’t slept in there at all. It wasn’t unusual because Ben was a thinker – a night owl. He would often stay awake long after me writing down his lyrics or watching a film for inspiration. But what was unusual was that he hadn’t left my side since the explosion. I sat up and pulled my hair up into a bun on top of my head with the hair band I kept religiously around my wrist. There was a sharp pain in my head. I was dehydrated.

The stab of anxiety had already hit my stomach. Like clockwork it happened within ten seconds of opening my eyes. Those first seconds of consciousness, although deceiving, were the respite that I would take, no matter how short. I always let those waking moments lull me into security and make me think that everything was going to be okay, that I would wake and be able to face the day without feeling the depression creeping around my body. Only this morning, Ben’s disappearance bought me an extra few seconds of solace as I was swept up in wonder. I looked at the bedside table. There was a glass of water and two tablets, left there by Annie probably. They looked a slightly different colour from yesterday but I couldn’t be quite sure. Annie had assured me they were for the shock. She got them from the internet and they were not the sort of things the doctors would prescribe in this country. Normally I would question such things but all I wanted was to feel numb and they did just that. I put them both in my mouth and took a big gulp of water. For only a moment I let in thoughts of the developing life within me as I swallowed the strange tablets.

I padded across the hall in my pyjamas bottoms and T-shirt and made my way downstairs, my hand rested on top of my bump, the other against the wall for balance.

The cold downstairs bit at my arms and as I arrived into the lounge I could already see the oversized shape of Ben on one of the sofas; a large brown fleecy blanket covering him up to his chin.

I took a moment to steal a glance at the window; the curtains hadn’t been shut from last night. Or perhaps Ben had opened them. The waves were thrashing against the wall at the end of the garden. I could see a tiny dot of a boat on the misty horizon.

I walked to the edge of the sofa and knelt next to him. ‘Ben,’ I whispered.