I wasn’t nearly so certain. I couldn’t be. Julian was such an incredible man that I didn’t believe anyone would want to cast him aside permanently, no matter what the situation was, but he knew them better than I did, just as I knew Mum and Crenham Drive better than he did. With everyone’s voice in Mum’s ears constantly, she’d be under the spell of judgement, and I’d be lost to her.

Still, it was what it was. The world would keep spinning, and Julian and me would still be together, pain binding us as well as love. I didn’t expect anything different, genuinely.

I read Julian’s amazingly written scenes...