He stormed out of the bedroom, swearing as he stubbed his toe against the flat-pack bookcase on the landing that had gathered a layer of dust as it waited to be built. We bought it six months ago. Our tiny house was full of half-finished projects and we argued about them endlessly, Adam insisting he would get around to things ‘in his own time’, but he never did. He’d rather spend his weekends ‘relaxing’ like he was the only one working full time. He was either sprawled on the sofa watching football on a Saturday afternoon or off playing it with Josh on a Sunday morning. After a match he would wallow in the bath, groaning each time he moved. It was me, of course, who washed his sweat-damp kit. Picked the clumps of mud up from the floor.

I had grown up and Adam hadn’t. Or perhaps we had just grown apart. Perhaps that was what happened when people got together in their early twenties. I had no idea at that age that one day I would enjoy meandering around art galleries, visiting stately homes. Longing for a garden I could landscape rather than the small, square box we had. I had no idea that Adam wouldn’t have developed any different interests to the ones he had when we met. Sport. Dreaming of all the places he had always wanted to visit but never had. Perhaps now never would. It had appeared incredibly romantic, him putting our relationship before his own ambition, but now I wondered if we were an all-too-convenient excuse for staying. Easier. Adam had never been good at arranging things.

That wasn’t quite true. On our first Valentine’s day he had a star named after me – I had laughed that he had called it Star – and that night we’d trudged up the hill, wellington-booted and huddled under layers, and he’d showed me, through a borrowed telescope, my gift.

‘How will I know which is mine?’ I had asked.

‘Because you always shine brighter than the rest.’

Was it wrong to have wanted life to continue like that, to have expected it? I knew it wasn’t about big romantic gestures, it was about the small things. But Adam didn’t seem to bother with those anymore either. His list of things to do pinned to the fridge had grown so long I had screwed it up and thrown it away in frustration, unable to bear looking at it anymore.