I could lie here for the rest of the night next to Max and watch him sleep, the culmination of all those dreams when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…But my leg twitches and I’m already getting restless. The sex was awkward, self-conscious. We weren’t comfortable together, it was clumsy and…I wanted to stop and I think he did too. He turned his back as soon as it was over, pretending to sleep. I know he was pretending by the tension in his shoulders, the unevenness of his breathing. It was sex by numbers and when I close my eyes, I mourn for the daydreams all shattered in thirty sweaty minutes. I need to get out. There’s an all-night grocery a couple of streets away. I’ll go and get bread and milk, attempt to make the morning after less awkward.

I hesitate when I step outside the building, looking into the patches of darkness between the street lights, half-expecting Sean or Jack to be hiding there. Silly—they don’t know where I live. They haven’t sought me out in ten years; there’s no reason they would now. It’s being back there. It’s spooked me. I should feel reassured being back here, in my safe place, my safe new life. I’ve made drunken late-night forays to the grocery before, seeking snacks after a night out with Sophie and the others. But at five o’clock in the morning, the streets are empty, the roads quiet. It’s as quiet as back home, where the woods haunt me. I hesitate before striding out, head down, taking a route that’s lit all the way.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“What?” I look at the clock—it’s five thirty. What’s he doing awake? He’s standing in the kitchen, shirtless, bare chest shining pale under the fluorescent light. I look away. All those years of me dreaming about having Max in my home, half-naked, but in this brightly lit reality I just want to throw a T-shirt at him and make him cover up.

“I woke up and you weren’t there. When you didn’t come back, I got up and you were nowhere. Where the hell have you been?”

“I went to get breakfast.” I put the milk and bread on the table.

“In the middle of the night—on your own? Are you insane?”

“It’s hardly the middle of the night—it’s nearly six. And it’s quite safe around here, I do it all the time.”