We had first done just that, on my birthday, when he had given me the picture. We’d gone to a hotel. Nassim spread a rug on the floor and laid out a feast. And in the sanctity of that room, we had our perfect moment: embracing life, embracing flesh, embracing now. Objectively there was nothing perfect about it – it was fumbling at best – but even then it was a sublime new thing, sex with Nassim. And after that I wanted it again and again, as often as I could get it. It was such a good thing – purely good, sexy and honest. It banished thought – for the first time I felt free of my thinky-thinky mind. Love was in my body. In his body. It relaxed me. It enlivened me. And we were so careful. We had been so, so careful. We were responsible. We weren’t going to be like those others, the stupid ones. We weren’t going to let it take us over, even though, even though yes, we were completely unable to keep away from each other. But we used condoms, even in the heat of it all, even when we didn’t want to, and then we made appointments and we both had our sexual health screens and I went on the pill. We were smart about it even while we lost our heads.

And now this.

I was still undecided. I might tell Nassim. I might.

Nassim had changed everything for me. For the better. Since he’d arrived in my life I wasn’t so worried all the time. I’d been sleeping better, I was beautifully distracted from the up-and-down shit-show that was life at home, I was generally happier. And I’d been convinced that this was a good enough trade-off for all the time I wasn’t studying, all the time I was spending with him that wasn’t actively moving me towards my goal of being a doctor.

But it was as if Dr Honeycott had shaken me awake. He had broken the happy trance I had been in. I had thought I could just fix this blip and continue on my merry way. But he was right. The blip wasn’t a blip at all. It was a message from the universe. Of course I didn’t deserve good things. Of course I didn’t deserve Nassim. Of course I couldn’t have him as well as the future I hoped for myself, needed for myself. That kind of happiness was for people other than me. Better people. People who didn’t fuck up. People who didn’t make themselves ridiculous at the first hint of attraction to a guy, people who didn’t get themselves pregnant like some stupid horny rutting animal and then try to convince themselves that there was no shame in it. My life had run off the tracks. And it was my own stupid weakness that had done it. Weak. I was weak. Weak. Like my mother.

So in the early dark of my bedroom I crept out from underneath Nassim’s arm. He had shifted unconsciously to let me up. ‘Bring back coffee,’ he’d mumbled and then disappeared back into sleep.