She took her cup into the bedroom and stripped off her running clothes. After putting on a dressing gown, she got back into bed. She sank down into the pillows, the king-size-plus bed wrapping her in softness. No wonder it was so difficult to get up in the morning. She leant her head against the soft, velvet grey headboard, so different to the single bed she and Chris had shared in her dorm room at university. How had they even managed to sleep cramped together like that? She smiled remembering fun nights and drunken sex, the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms, warm and comfortable in each other’s company.

Her new friends at Manchester university had been surprised to learn that she already had a boyfriend and that she and Chris had deliberately chosen to attend the same university. Didn’t she want to go out on the pull? Didn’t she want the anticipation of not knowing who she would meet? But Claire wanted the complete opposite. She loved to dance and drink but the thought of kissing a random student in a nightclub did not appeal at all. At the time, it had only been a couple of years since the incident and she just couldn’t…

She had never told any of her new friends at university what had happened. What was the point? It was over and done with and besides… she had Chris, who made her feel safe and protected.

And normal.

The fact that they’d managed to get into the same university after being together in their last year of sixth form was the cherry on the cake in Claire’s opinion. And they had a plan. After graduation, she in law and Chris in business, they would get jobs and buy a house. They would get married in their mid-twenties, have baby number one at twenty-seven and number two at twenty-nine.

She knew Chris felt the same as she did, as they talked about it frequently. She also knew that his mates had egged him on to not settle down so early but when Chris was on his nights out, she never worried that he would succumb to the pressure. There was just one time when she went to his dorm room one morning around nine after one of his nights out and he wasn’t there. She’d left his room, wondering where he was. Later, he said he’d got up early and gone to the gym and she’d believed him. And as the hormones of freshers’ week settled down and the demands of the course kicked in, her friends started to envy the stability and consistency of her and Chris.