You’re wicked and immoral. No good can come from making a life off the terrible misfortune of another.

I hate it when things I fear actually do come true. It makes it more likely to happen again in the future.

“And falling pregnant so swiftly will only make things worse. I am sorry,” I say. “You and the children, you don’t need this.”

“We’ll protect them,” he says. “We didn’t plan this.”

I wish my conscience was as clear as his.

Every therapy room is different. The common themes, however, are usually two chairs opposite each other or a small sofa, a box of tissues, glasses of water (not a given). Those who work in a home environment tend to have books (with carefully chosen, relevant titles, never anything frivolous or that gives away their fiction-reading tastes) lining wooden bookshelves, and for some reason, there is always a vase. Some empty, some with fake flowers. There are never any personal photos.

Christian has a filing cabinet in the corner of his room, with a key. Sometimes, when the words don’t flow and the quietness is unbearable, I distract my mind by trying to guess some of the secrets hidden inside.

Christian congratulates me on my baby news.

Silence.

I tell him about Camilla and the fact that her daughter is my ex-boyfriend’s.

“The thing that annoys me the most—well, actually, there’s a lot that annoys me—but it’s that she lied. When I confronted them about it, they said that it was all in my imagination. Yet, it wasn’t. Louise is that proof. Camilla calls her Lulu.” I roll my eyes.

Christian smiles, and because he appears to agree with me that it’s a ridiculous nickname, it motivates me to continue.

“Nina knew,” I said. “That hurts, too. I can understand why she didn’t want to tell me, especially as Camilla moved away, but she just buried it, didn’t tell anyone, not even Stuart.” I pause. “Which strikes me as odd.”

Saying the words out loud forces me to consider and properly analyze what I’ve just said.

“In what way?”

“As soon as we returned from our Ibizan holiday, Nina and Stuart were together. She was that into him, which was strange, too, as although she liked him enough on holiday, I really didn’t see enough there to think that it would continue in the way that it did. Nina wasn’t that traditional either. She was only twenty-one. Yet it was engagement, marriage, babies. Bish, bosh, bash. She and Stuart must’ve talked to each other about their shared holiday together and the people they were with, especially after the end to our holiday was so brutally abrupt.”

“How?”

I hesitate. I’m not sure I want to tell him. I never tell anybody because I’m afraid that I will confess to the tiny part I played in the catastrophic chain of events. Charlie was my first love, Camilla my nemesis, dramatic sounding as it is. I’m not sure I would know where to even begin.