A cauldron of emotion sloshed about within me–disbelief, denial, anger–before the inevitable star of the show, Acceptance, finally appeared, letting me know that this was real and it was happening. To me. With my boyfriend and with a woman I had trusted.

If only it was possible to teleport back in time, say, to twenty minutes ago, when I was sitting in a cafe across the road, tucking into a giant piece of chocolate cake and daydreaming. Well, in fact I’d been daydreaming most of the day–in between thinking about all the massive things that needed changing in my life. Things I had previously been so scared of discussing but suddenly felt more ready than ever to talk about.

But here I stood, watching my boyfriend’s Oscar-winning porn performance, and all those so-called plans began to shatter into miniature shards of hopelessness.

I felt for the notepad and yellow fluffy pen in my back pocket as a shiver sprinted through my entire body; the forgotten half-empty can of ginger beer fell from my hand, its contents spilling out over the hard wood floor. That’s when they both stopped, opened their eyes and whipped their heads round, like the girl from The Exorcist.

‘Lena?’ Justin gasped, sounding like a complete stranger and not the man I’d spent the last two years with. I lifted my face up and felt my eyes betray me and begin to moisten. My mouth widened to speak, but nothing came out. I just knew that I had to get out of that flat and as far away as possible. I had never witnessed anything so painful in my entire thirty years on this earth.

Backing out of that door, my knees were ready to buckle. I reached for the banisters to support myself as Justin called out to me in a pathetic, yet desperate-sounding voice. ‘Lena!’

My legs were turning to blancmange. I had to get out of

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Table of Contents

PROLOGUE