Everything changed in the summer of 2001.
You announced you were getting married. I didn’t think, even then, you would abandon me. I’d always been naïve, that’s what you said. But still I had thought we would last forever – that nothing would come between us. As far as you knew I’d always done exactly what you’d asked of me.
‘You’ll need to move out,’ you said, so cold, so cruel. ‘Gail will be moving in in a couple of weeks.’
I moved back in with my father. And, yes, I admit I hung about Gail’s cottage in Bostagel. I wanted to see where the woman who was replacing me lived.
That’s when I saw Ava again.
I shouldn’t have gone into the cottage, and climbed the stairs. I hadn’t intended to watch her sleeping. But it was as I watched her snuffle, snuggled on her red beanbag, I felt a connection, almost as strong as the one I felt for you.