any more about my neighbour and her child. The more time I spent at uni, the less I would hear the crying. The incident in the supermarket would occasionally creep back and bother me. It was usually just as I was dropping off to sleep when the finger of shame would tap me lightly on the shoulder and remind me to feel a little more mortification.

On Friday I arrived home from the art rooms to the lingering smell of fajita. It was gone 10 p.m., and I was absolutely starving. I hoped that someone had the foresight to leave a plate of food out for me. I placed my bag down in the hallway and headed for the kitchen. I stopped when I heard hushed whispers coming from inside and stood behind the closed door. The hallway was in darkness – someone needed to replace the bulb and I felt a surge of annoyance that it would probably be left to me.

I could hear a female voice and a male voice. It could only be Steve and Karen arguing again. They had been doing a lot more of that recently. I was intrigued to know what they could be discussing at such a late hour outside the privacy of Karen’s bedroom. What had happened to love’s young dream? They had once been joined at the hip, now there was a tension in the air whenever Steve was around. The cracks were starting to show.

It had suddenly gone very quiet, and so I thought I would leave them to it, pop back for my fajitas when they had come out. I was about to turn around and pick up my bag and head upstairs when Sophia almost collided with me as she came racing out of the kitchen. Even in the darkness of the hallway, I could see she had been crying.

‘Oh, hi,’ I said. ‘I was just going to see if there were any fajitas left.’

‘There’s some left in the fridge, just reheat them in the microwave.’ She was already heading for the stairs.

‘Great, I’ll…’ I was about to say I would pop up and see if she was okay in a minute but she was already taking the stairs two at a time.

Next out of the kitchen came Steve.

‘Guess she’s still got that sickness thing,’ he said and, again, he hurried past me, up the stairs and I heard him open Karen’s door and go in.

I stood in the dark hallway for a few seconds and let the reality of what was happening sink in. Sophia wouldn’t have had to go anywhere to get pregnant. It had been happening under this very roof. All those days when Steve was here and Karen wasn’t.

Suddenly the thought of leftover fajitas was no longer enticing.

Over the weekend a heavy tension increased like a thunder cloud after a heatwave. I heard plenty of raised whispers from Karen’s room and Steve left the house several times only to come back half an hour later on each occasion. Sophia spent the whole time hibernating in the bedroom.

By Sunday morning, Steve had gone and Karen was sat at the kitchen table sipping a coffee, looking deeply sorry for herself.

‘It feels like summer now,’ she said to the room, even though she knew I was in there, clearing through the fridge, getting rid of the old food and giving it a good wipe down. I had seen a post that morning from Mrs Clean and she had been doing the very same thing. It inspired me to keep up the momentum. So many germs breed in the fridge. I had taken a picture beforehand and I was even thinking about doing my first tap-to-tidy post and tag Mrs Clean in it.

‘I love the summer. I was so looking forward to the summer with Steve.’ She pulled her legs up to her chest as she sat on the chair and pulled her sweatshirt down over her bare knees. She was wearing what looked like a pair of Steve’s boxer shorts. Her hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail. ‘I don’t think we’ll last that long though.’

I stopped my cleaning and turned towards Karen. She had a wad of tissue in her hand and for a moment I thought it was for her hay fever.

She put her legs on the floor and spun towards me.

‘I think he’s fallen out of love with me.’ Her voice broke and tears spilled from her eyes. ‘He left this morning, said he wasn’t sure when he would be back, said he needed “time” to think things over,’ she said, accentuating and almost spitting out the final words.

I edged towards the table, unsure whether to sit down and try to comfort her.

‘Time, time for what? Did he say?’

‘No, that’s just it, it’s a bloody cryptic quiz with him. I literally cannot get a word of sense from him. I don’t think he even knows what he wants. All that time he was coming here when I wasn’t here, I thought it was because he loved being here so much, because it made him feel close to me or something. When you said that he was here as often as he was, I had no clue. I only gave him a key for the odd occasion he may need to let himself in. I really felt we were moving on, going places. How can he go from being that keen, to this, leaving and not saying when I might see him again?’

It made sense that Steve and Sophia had become so close so quickly if he was here when Karen wasn’t. I moved to the kitchen table, peeled off the Marigolds, took a deep breath and tentatively placed my hand on top of Karen’s, hoping this would offer some sort of comfort.

‘I don’t know is my answer. But I really think you need to speak to him properly and make him be up front and honest with you?’

She looked at me

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