Bella’s thoughts drifted to her having to go home to her own empty house and she gazed at the pile of books that needed marking. If she stayed here, she could also get ahead for the next couple of days by printing out the worksheets she needed. Deep down Bella knew she was doing anything she could to avoid going home but she just wasn’t ready.

The urge to call Evan gripped her and though the various warnings she’d given herself resounded in her head; it was as if her fingers had a mind of their own. Sitting at her desk, she took her phone from her bag and found Evan’s number. His face smiled out at her from the tiny profile picture. His light brown hair was just visible, and she thought about the times she’d run her hands through it. He suited the flecks of silver that time had given him, and her heart squeezed unpleasantly in her chest that she’d never get to see or feel it again.

Surely she was owed some further explanation? She had questions, so many questions, and if they continued to go unanswered, they’d drive her insane. She deserved that much, didn’t she? She deserved to know when exactly he’d started to fall out of love with her. When he’d first become attracted to this other woman and how they’d met. She and Evan had still been having sex, after all. Okay, it was a bit less often than when they first met and sometimes relatively perfunctory, but that was because they were both busy. She still deserved to know when exactly he’d decided to leave her.

For the first time, a surge of anger at the injustice of it all forced her fingers to tap the screen and in a matter of seconds it was ringing. Her wrath was immediately replaced with swirling nerves and renewed heartache, but she refused to hang up. She’d leave a message if she had to. By slinking out of the door while she was in shock, he’d robbed her of the chance to talk about it, to shout and swear and rage at how unfair it all was. If she’d been able to speak, would she have begged him to stay? She didn’t think so and she wasn’t going to offer to change in the vain hope he might come back, but right now, all she really wanted was the chance to call him names to his face.