I sniff back a tear, my chest feeling a little less tight. ‘I know, but I should have kept quiet and not said anything. Katie would have seen what he was really like, or they would have got bored of each other. I might have been lonely for a while but she would have come back to me when it ended. I shouldn’t have told her how I felt.’

No, your mistake was trying to emotionally blackmail her.

My breath catches, his words like a slap to my face.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Ivy. You mustn’t think you did anything wrong.’

‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t say one thing when you mean another.’

He runs his hand through his hair, bewildered. ‘I didn’t, I …’

I get to my feet before he can finish speaking. It doesn’t matter what he says. I know what he really thinks. I heard it for myself. I will never be able to share the pain of how I feel. I will never be rid of it. There was a time I used to wish my hurt could be taken away from me, that I would go to sleep and wake up a different person, like a caterpillar discovering it has wings. But life isn’t like that. The pain is a part of me. I have to accommodate it; my body grow around it. It’s mine to carry and there’s no use trying to share it.

‘Talk to me. Please, Ivy, I don’t understand what’s happening.’

I shake my head, refusing to say another word. I was stupid to trust him. I should never have told him how I feel.

A shadowy form darts across the room, leaving a trail of white footprints on the floor. I point to warn Tom, when something stirs in the chair next to him. At first it’s just a swirl of grey, its outline blurry and indistinct, and then it flickers and becomes denser, as if it’s drawing the darkness into itself. A bad smell wafts from it, the rotting stench of sulphur giving way to a meaty, sucked-penny odour of flesh and blood.

Tom looks at the footprints then back to me, his face pinched with fear. He still hasn’t noticed what’s in the chair next to him. The black mass grows darker, pulsating and throbbing as it forms into a solid shape. Its rounded head hangs forward and I can make out the shape of its lopsided shoulders. It rises up, revealing a narrow torso made of muscle and sinew. Tom sees it and leaps to his feet, his chair clattering to the tiles. The creature lifts its head and I stifle a scream. Its mouth is an open wound, its eyes a mass of pale grubs wriggling in the sockets.

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