Yet I made a mistake, too.

If I’d opened my mouth and told anyone who’d listen that Charlie was missing, regardless of how common it was, I could have extracted myself from them. I should’ve insisted that we went to the police or at least tried to find him. They’d have had to face up to what they’d done, however accidental (or not).

I’d have got on with my life, but by allowing myself to be guided by Nina, I remained immersed in her world. That’s the thing when you don’t fit in—you’ll be surprised at what you’ll do to make yourself more popular. I used to lie to make my life appear better. Back then, I lied through my inaction and a failure to act in the right way. It’s hard to forgive myself.

Now I’m stuck with yet another dilemma. And poor Charlie has faded away from collective consciousness. No one truly cares anymore. It gives me an idea. Perhaps I’ll create a small album for Camilla, too. Everyone hopes they’re safe, that they can slip through life with various misdemeanors or more serious crimes unseen, but the camera can always see.

When I photographed weddings or parties, the purest details were revealed in the images I snatched during the final hours. The same applies to that photo of the three of them. A random stranger snapped that image while momentarily hidden behind Nina’s camera, unseen in the picture, yet they were a witness to Charlie’s final hours. It can’t do any harm for Camilla to have a reminder of that.

I close the album’s cover; it’s done. In pictures, Nina’s old life flows into the new: me, Jack, Goldie. The last picture is one of all the children in age order: Louise, Felix, Emily and Jack. Two boys, two girls. #happyblendedfamily. We have plenty of digital memories. It was important to have a physical one, too.

I phone Christian. There must be something in my voice, because he agrees to see me the following morning.

I am openly wistful, raw, with nothing left to hide. Strange, really, that I used to carry around with me this (yet another) irrational fear that if all my therapists somehow got together, they’d get a fuller, more accurate picture of me. For the first time, I speak from the heart, unfiltered.

“Be careful what you wish for,” I say. “It’s one of those things that you think you get but I didn’t, not until I wished for something for so hard and so long, then I got it. And it wasn’t what I wanted, or what I thought it would be. I did set out to steal Nina’s life.”

“In what way?”

“I thought if I had what Nina had, I’d be happy. She and I... We were friends, but I felt like her assistant or yes-person rather than us being in an equal friendship, especially as we got older. Love, hate. Envy, desire. It’s hard to explain what keeping quiet, or always guessing at what is the right thing to say or do, does to someone. I was never fully myself because I thought we wouldn’t stand a chance of being friends if I was. She was full of life, full of confidence in herself.”