She closes her eyes, trying to imagine how she must look to Dylan. He has only ever seen her with her colored contact lenses, so her eyes have always appeared a light blue. Without them her irises are revealed in their true state, almost devoid of pigment, just the palest hint of blue tingeing their basic pinkness. With no color to block out the blood vessels in the eye, the irises appear pink in some lights, almost transparent in others. Either way, they are startlingly unusual. She has worn lenses since her teens, in order to appear less different. More normal. But today she went out without them. The light was still winter-daybreak soft so, that even with the snow, there had been no glare to remind her to use them. Only when the sun had properly risen had she begun to squint, yet even then she had not thought about her lenses. This strikes her as odd now. Whilst part of the point of wearing them is cosmetic, and another part to cut out the harshest of the sun’s rays, the lenses also have a prescription in them to help her weak eyesight.

But today I saw everything. I could see everything clearly without them!

She is still trying to take in this fact when Dylan puts the plates on the table. ‘Here you go,’ he says, ‘best local eggs from freest of free range chickens. And crumpets, ’cos you’re out of bread. And tea.’ He looks up at her, grinning, determinedly looking at her but not staring. Tilda is touched by his consideration. She thinks of going to put her lenses in, so that he might be more comfortable sitting opposite her, but now she changes her mind.

No. It’s okay. This is me. Let him see me.

‘This looks fantastic,’ she says, plucking off her gloves and sitting down. ‘I haven’t run in a while. I’m famished.’

‘Was it slippy, running in the snow?’ he asks.

‘Not really. Anyway, it’s so gorgeous out there, it was worth the risk. Thistle loved it too. Went all puppyish, didn’t you, girl? Look, she’s brought a stick home,’ she says, waving her fork in the direction of the dog, who is already warming herself on her cushion by the Rayburn.

‘That’s not a stick.’ Dylan peers over his mug of tea. ‘Looks more like, I dunno…’ He gets up and holds out his hand. ‘Let’s have a look, then, Thistle. Can I have it?’

The dog answers with a low growl, curling up her lip to show her fine, sharp teeth.

‘Okay,’ he says, backing away, ‘I’ll take that as a no.’