Chris laughed. ‘Yeah, I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure you would be up for it, but I got you in the end.’

‘That was a great summer, wasn’t it?’ reminisced Claire, ignoring her husband’s possessive language. Their first summer together, they hadn’t done anything special like go on holiday. Well, Chris’s parents had asked him to go on holiday with them to America, but he’d refused, wanting to spend every minute with her. At that point, they didn’t know if they would both get into the same university. Claire remembered thinking it was the most romantic thing in the world, for him to give up a trip to the US for her.

Claire’s parents usually took her abroad most years but that summer they hadn’t planned anything in case she’d preferred to go away with her friends after finishing her exams. Instead, she spent it with Chris. They took romantic day trips to the Lake District, went for drives, enjoyed long walks and pub lunches. And they talked a lot.

After a few weeks, Chris had broached the subject of Paul; said that he’d heard what had happened, told her he would never hurt her, that she was always safe with him. He didn’t press her for any details and she was glad. She couldn’t talk about any of it. She just wanted to forget it. So instead, when he put his arms around her, she held him close, closed her eyes, and breathed in his scent, pushing away the memories of Paul. It was over and her new life was about to begin with Chris.

‘It was a great summer,’ agreed her husband, finishing his mouthful of pasta. ‘Although it was a long time ago now. Do you remember going to collect our exam results? God, we got so drunk afterwards.’

Claire remembered. She’d got straight As and her parents had been so proud. They had both come to the school with her, her dad taking a rare day off work, and they were thrilled when she’d shown them the results paper. To his credit, her dad had barely flinched when she’d told him she was planning to go to Manchester university with Chris instead of her first choice, Edinburgh. He didn’t try and persuade her to go further afield and for that Claire was grateful. Her dad had simply said it was her choice and she had to do what made her happy. Surprisingly, her mother hadn’t said anything either and she suspected she was relieved she would have her daughter closer to home.

Now, as she sat at the dining table opposite Chris, she wondered how her life would have turned out if she’d gone to Edinburgh instead. Would she have met someone else? Would she be living somewhere else? It was a pointless hypothesis, but one Claire couldn’t help occasionally wondering about.