I hunted high and low, but there was nothing. Not a speck, not a drop of alcohol in the place. The nearest I found was a bottle of malt vinegar, and some white spirit under the sink.

It was the most impersonal flat I’d been in since my childhood.

I was desperate perhaps, but I wasn’t going out again tonight. I wasn’t risking Rex seeing me, I wasn’t crossing his path again until I’d decided what to do.

And it was good not to drink obviously. I needed my wits about me. I had to make decisions. Perhaps it was time to go cold turkey.

But, God, I wanted a large glass of wine.

I picked up my phone and rang Ruby back.

The conversation went round and round my head until I fell asleep on Fin’s narrow bed.

I dreamt of a class of children, picking teams, and no one picking me, and then I saw Willow Jackson beside me, in her school uniform, unpicked too – and she began to scream.

Was it her furious face that woke me in the early hours? I sat bolt upright, terrified, sweating and bewildered.

Where the hell was I?

It was dark, but headlights traced white patterns across the shadowed bedroom wall. There wasn’t a picture hung anywhere in the flat, I thought groggily. Nor a mirror, apart from a small blurry one above the bathroom sink.

I crept out of bed and into the living room.

He was lying on the sofa, arm flung behind his head, eyes shut; his breathing rhythmic, quiet.

I knelt on the floor beside him, bare knees on the cheap scratchy carpet, and watched him for a moment.

I reached out a tentative hand, about to touch his face with fingertips, when he opened one eye, cat-like.

He closed it again, but I’d already shot to my feet and scampered back to the bedroom.

On the bed again, I lay on my side, counting the car lights that slid across the wall… one… two…

Counting like I used to when I was small and waiting for—

The door opened, but I wasn’t frightened.

This is now, I told myself, as I’d been taught to. Not then.

Slowly, I turned.

Fin stood, part hidden in the shadows from the hall.

‘All right, mo chuisle?’ His voice was low.

I didn’t know what he’d said, but it sounded beautiful. Like a foreigner, this stranger with beautiful clear eyes and a soul I couldn’t quite fathom.

I was good at reading souls usually. My old Tarot cards, still tucked into my bag.

His was a soul I trusted enough. As if that counted for anything though with my recent record, my lack of judgement. My lifelong mistakes.

I was a mistake: sprung into this world unwanted and quickly discarded.

But he was different to Rex, that much I did know.

I didn’t speak. He stood, looking down for a moment – and then he walked away.

I felt the sink of disappointment in my belly as I watched his back.