I drop my phone on the duvet and lie back on the bed. Though I knew this would happen, it still hits me like a punch in the gut. I read it again and sense a slight question mark in his email, as though he’s asking me if I really mean it, if I actually want us to go through with the divorce, and I wonder for the hundredth time if I could forgive him and move past what he did. Part of me aches to do so, but I know I can’t let myself, despite what it means for my future. How could I, when he hurt me to the core when I was already so broken? He kicked me when I was down – and that feels unforgivable.

Light is streaming through the window of my bedroom, even though it’s only 5am. Sleep has eluded me for the past hour. The house is silent – it’s even too early for Luca to wake – and the lack of noise is oppressive, pushing me to fill it with thoughts and feelings I’d rather ignore. Like those weeks after we met in that bar on my friend Rachel’s thirtieth birthday: his wide smile, the crinkles by his eyes, the touch of his hands on my skin for the first time. It’s strange to think how much lighter my head was back then, not weighed down as it feels now. Only filled with love and hope and expectation. We’d get married, live in a nice house, have a couple of kids, succeed in our jobs, earn enough money. I remember how utterly sure I felt it would happen in that way, even if I never articulated it out loud. It’s what I wanted, what all my friends wanted – to have it all. Thirty when we met, thirty-four when we got hitched. Perfect timing. I thought we were strong enough to handle anything, but in the following five years so much changed, so much happened to set us apart from each other, and it turned out we weren’t that strong after all.

We’re not us anymore.

That’s what Patrick said when I confronted him about what a workmate had seen: a kiss in a doorway. Smiles and laughter. Tumbling into a cab.

You’ve let this situation take over your life, you’re just wallowing in misery. We don’t laugh anymore, and I need to laugh, Jess.

As though it was my fault, as though I pushed him into bed with her.