A bedroom. A view of the Hollywood Hills. Floor to ceiling windows and light wood floorboards. There was a big bookshelf filled with vinyl records and the brightly coloured spines of novels, a king-sized bed with white linen, a free-standing bathtub with big clawed feet and, in the corner, a piano.

The hashtag said: #wemoved

It was the exact room we’d dreamed of when we were together, down to the clawed feet of the bathtub. When we first broke up I had this theory that until I could paint him out of the imaginary future I’d created in my head for the two of us I wouldn’t get over him. And so I got to work. But now I see: he’d erased me first. He’d taken my dreams and given them to her.

The kettle boiled and sang out, it switched off, and as I made my coffee, I dropped in a swig of whiskey. And then I waited for my blood to slow, tapped on the window to say hello to Mr Oiseau and told myself the day could only get better.

Judy was on the phone when I arrived at work.

‘Morning,’ I said as I passed her, still mellow from my boozy coffee.

She smiled at me in reply.

I sat down at my desk and powered on my computer as I looked around. The office was quiet, almost everyone was out except me, Judy and a freelancer wearing earbuds, working at a hot desk. I scanned through my inbox and a sense of calm came over me. Because it was okay. It didn’t matter what Harrison did or did not do. This was me now: Harper Brown, Journalist. I had done it. And I needed to hang onto that. I was no longer that woman he cheated on, the woman who made excuses for him, who sacrificed everything for him. I was different now. I was stronger. And I’m not even sure this version of me wants that place in the Hollywood Hills anymore.

I pulled up the article I was working on – the Saul Leiter inspired German artist whose exhibition I went to see after that interlude on the metro – and read over what I’d penned thus far.

It wasn’t half bad.

It wasn’t going to put me on the landing page but that would come. I had to believe, one day, that would come. It’s just one day felt so far away because I’d been so close.