‘Get off me, Dina! You’re insane!’ He pulls away and takes several steps back towards the desk in front of the bay window.

‘Zoe, do something! Call someone!’

‘I hope she kills you,’ I mutter, shaking and feeling utterly ridiculous and humiliated in my wedding dress. Suddenly, I’m desperate to get out of it. To rip it to shreds and stuff the pieces down my cheating fiancé’s throat.

‘I’m a mistake, am I?’ Dina snatches up an empty coffee cup and lobs it at Toby. He ducks and it misses him, shattering against the window, but she follows it up with the saucer which glances off his chin. She’s searching around for something else to throw and grabs a large heavy-looking glass vase filled with white winter roses.

‘Don’t!’ Toby strides over to where she’s standing in the centre of the room and tries to wrench the vase out of her grip before she can do any serious damage with it. They struggle and I wonder what the hell I’m even doing here. I should leave them to it. Let them kill each other. Today is wrecked. The life I thought I was going to have is over. My world is in tatters. Toby is a cheat. They both betrayed me.

Dina hugs the vase to her chest, refusing to let it go. Toby now has her by the throat. She manages to choke out a few choice swear words before eventually dropping the vase. It shatters on the wooden floor, water pooling around their feet. Winter roses mingling with shards of cut glass. Dina’s face is scarlet, her eyes wide.

I suddenly realise that my wish might be about to come true. He might actually kill her. And no matter how screwed up our relationship is, I don’t actually want my sister to die!

‘Toby, let go.’

His face is contorted with rage, his hands still fixed around her neck.

‘Toby!’ I stumble over to where they stand tussling in the centre of the room, a grim tableaux. ‘Stop it!’ I yell, my shoes crunching over broken glass as I yank at his arm, trying to get him to release his hold on her. He pays me no attention. ‘STOP! You’re going to kill her!’ I can’t break his grip. I need to get help…

Thirty

NOW

The hotel room is endlessly dark. I’m sitting up in bed, a cold sweat dampening my hair, my head pounding, my heart racing with a deep terror that leaves me gasping and gulping for air. Shaking and crying as though I’m still there in Toby’s hotel room ten years ago. As though it was only seconds ago that I was screaming at him to stop what he was doing. Crunching over broken glass. Trying to break his grip from around Dina’s neck.