"FUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!" She would have screamed it out loud, if she could have been sure of not being heard. As it was, she screamed it deep into her heart, where it burnt, scraped, and dug, till she folded up double on her bed with anguish.

She looked again at her phone.

Sorry, love. It's over.

Four words. She stared at them again. She did not cry. For she was not sad as such. Nor even angry. Just in pain, bereft, despairing.

She lay back on her bed trembling, fists clenched against breasts. And in her abandonment, she pondered. She knew how she had got here. But, though she did not know...