Normally she would be, but normality no longer exists.

‘Did you have a good evening?’ What she really wants to ask is where he’s been, but she knows she has no right.

‘Sorry I rushed off like that,’ he says. ‘Work was tough today and I just needed to get out. Clear my head.’

‘Where did you go in the end?’

‘To Mum and Dad’s. Some of Dad’s things ended up in my case. Not sure how that happened. Shall we go to bed? I could do with an early night.’

There is so much more she wants to ask him, yet she needs to give him his mental space. That’s what she needs from him, so the least she can do is reciprocate.

She is surprised when, after a while of scrolling through his phone in bed, Rob strokes her arm. What shocks her even more, though, is the frisson of excitement which passes through her body. It feels different, yet she can’t explain how or why.

Afterwards, while Rob sleeps, she goes downstairs where she’s left her laptop. She logs onto her email and reads his one again, letting the words soak into her.

I needed you, Abby, and I think you needed me too. Can we talk? Please.

Her finger hovers over the mouse button, and then she is applying pressure, moving the cursor to the reply button.

Yes. I think we need to meet.

That’s all she writes. The rest is now up to him.

She never thought she’d be the type of person to sneak out of her house in the middle of the night, like a teenager escaping from a curfew. Yet two days after she’s sent her reply, this is exactly what she’s doing. Rob could wake up and find her missing, but that’s a chance she’ll have to take; she needs to do this.

It’s nearly midnight when she gets to Richmond Park – the other side of London. She told him she’d wait in the car; there’s no way she’ll step foot outside. He’ll think it’s because she’s worried about it being so late, so dark. He doesn’t need to know the real reason she won’t step foot outside the car.

Someone taps on the passenger window, and her body freezes. She can’t tell whether it’s him, and no car has pulled up anywhere nearby. Then he is peering in, and despite her determination not to feel anything, it’s there surging through her veins. She rolls the window down.

‘Are you going to let me in?’ he asks.

‘This was a bad idea,’ she replies, forcing herself to look away.

‘We’re here now. Let’s just talk. Please.’