There’s a tightness in my chest.

‘It was a long time ago,’ Stella says softly.

‘It was. And I know that the adult me should be able to rationalise it all. Adult me does, to an extent, but there’s still this child in me who is so hurt by it all. And I’ve not always done the right thing, Stella. I’ve done bad things, you know. Things I’m not proud of. I can feel myself slipping back into those bad behaviours and it scares me. I should be better than this.’

Damn it, I feel the tightness in my chest rise up. A tingle in my nose, stinging in my eyes. I feel as if the floodgates, while not exactly opening, are about to crack a little.

‘We’ve all done the wrong thing when we’re hurting. Good people can do bad things for good reasons. And you’re a good person. I know that more than anything,’ Stella says, picking at invisible lint on the throw and looking downwards while she talks.

I shake my head. ‘I’m not sure I am,’ I say. ‘I’ve been so vindictive towards Heidi.’ My face blazes.

‘It’s understandable. She was your competition in a lot of ways. But it certainly doesn’t seem that she was fond of your father, either.’

‘That’s what angered me most when he left – you know, back then. That she seemed to hate him so much when I would’ve given anything to have him back. It was easier to hate her than hate him, I suppose. I didn’t want to see him as the enemy.’

‘But that changed?’ Stella says, probing gently. Her voice is calm and soft.

A tear falls and I wipe it away hastily, even though my arms are limp with exhaustion. I nod, just as I can feel my heart rate start to rise.

‘What happened to change it?’

I close my eyes. Images, snapshots of a time long gone flicker in my mind. Things I wasn’t sure for a long time were real. Things maybe I’m still not sure are real but I feel they are. Somewhere inside me I know they are. He called it love, but it wasn’t love, after all. It was never love. I’m scared to say the words. Afraid of judgement, even though I know that it wasn’t me, you see. I was never, ever the one at fault. I was a child.

I was only a child.

That bastard.

I was only a child, and he took so much from me and tried to convince me it was because he loved me just so very much. And then, despite all that ‘love’ he said he felt for me, and only me, he left. Shame washes over me. The shame borne out of all those confused, fucked-up feelings I experienced. The loyalty I showed him. How I begged him, this monster, to come back.

In a voice as small as I feel in that moment, my face blazing with shame, my voice choked with emotion and my stomach churning, the small sips of tepid wine threatening to rise from my stomach and splatter the floor, I speak. I close my eyes and say the words I’ve not said to a single person before.