Chapter one

‘This isn’t working, is it?’

For one mad moment I thought Jake was talking about the toaster. It had been on the blink for a while. But then so had we.

Two perfect golden-brown slices of wholemeal toast pop up with a cheerful ping and my heart sags a little.

I glance up from my own bowl of dubiously named ‘luxury’ muesli and try to look as if every dry, claggy, unluxurious spoonful isn’t choking me.

Jake grabs his toast, wincing as it burns his fingers. He tosses it onto a plate before he returns my gaze. ‘You know what I’m talking about, Lyssa.’

Yes. I do. Our fourth and most gruelling attempt at IVF has just ended in a watery red blob in the toilet bowl and misery. My misery. Our misery. I give up with my spoon. ‘Of course I do.’ I’m trying not to cry and I guess I should go over to comfort him, but I haven’t got enough emotional energy for myself let alone any to spare. I force a rigid smile. ‘But we can try again.’

Jake hasn’t made any attempt to butter his toast and it must be getting cold. In a pan on the cooker, two eggs are knocking around in our only All-Clad pan, the bubbling water tossing them to and fro. My boyfriend, or whatever we’re supposed to call them these days, sounds irritable. ‘Not the IVF.’

I mentally trawl through a list of all our other domestic appliances that might be dodgy.

‘Us,’ he says starkly. ‘Us. We’re not working.’

I nearly laugh. I was just wondering if he meant the fridge—which frosts up far too quickly for my liking. I’m sure it never used to—but then you really never pay that much attention to your fridge, do you? Or your partner in life, it seems. And then I realise that Jake is deadly serious. The skin round his eyes is more drawn than I’ve ever seen it before and his mouth is pulled down at the corners.

‘It’s a difficult time for us,’ I say calmly when I really want to scream, You’re not the one that’s bleeding here, Jake! Instead, I turn to him and quietly say, ‘All couples have them. We’ll get through it.’