‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t care about what you want.’

‘Can I come inside? Can we talk?’ he asked. I knew I would let him in and I knew that we would talk, rigorously and deeply, into the night. But I saw the words of every sassy self-help book sloganism I’d heard second-hand my whole life: play hard to get, make him wait, show him what he’s missing. I pretended to be in conflict about my decision and continued the silent stand-off for a minute. Then I walked to the front door, turned the key and entered, feeling him close behind me.

When we got into my flat, I was surprised at how dangerous it felt to have him in my home again. This was a man who was directly responsible for so much of my pain. And I had invited him in, to stand in my living room, both of us either end of the dining table leaning awkwardly on a chair.

‘I hate that I put you through this,’ he finally said.

‘I don’t think you know what this has really felt like.’

‘I do know.’

‘You don’t. Because if you did you would never have done something so cruel. I don’t think you have really properly thought what it was like or how you would have felt if I’d done this to you.’

‘I think about it all the time. I would have been absolutely devastated, obviously.’

‘You made me beg for you to speak to me, to even acknowledge I existed. You made me feel desperate and deluded. You made me feel like you didn’t exist, like I’d made it all up.’ He held his head in his hands. ‘And I couldn’t say anything because whenever I questioned your coldness, you made me feel like I was crazy. You tried to convince me that it was abnormal that I wanted to speak to a man who’d just told me he was in love with me. I can’t believe you made me think I was crazy, what the fuck was the matter with me.’

‘It moved so quickly and it felt so intense so fast,’ he said. ‘When in reality we didn’t really know each other that well. It derailed me, just for a bit.’

‘You were the one who made it intense. You were the one telling me you wanted to marry me. Or that you couldn’t stop thinking about me. You rang me twice a day. You insisted we spent every other night together. I just wanted to hang out and get to know each other. You decided the entire pace of this relationship then you slammed on the brakes when it suited you. It was like I was just a lucky passenger along for the ride.’

‘I fell in love with you very quickly, I couldn’t help it. I wanted to spend all my time with you, so I did. I should have taken it slower.’

‘You weren’t in love with me.’

‘I was completely in love with you.’

‘Being in love isn’t a notion. It’s not a theory. It’s a connection you have to someone. If you were in love with me, you wouldn’t have been able to be apart from me. Fucking hell, didn’t you miss me? What’s wrong with you, Max? We saw each other so much, we spoke every day and then there was nothing. Why didn’t you miss me?’ I was aware how hysterical I sounded now, but I didn’t care.

‘It was too painful to miss you, I found a way to distract myself.’

‘With what? Other women?’

His gaze broke away from my mine. ‘You know what I’m like, I’m scarily good at compartmentalizing things. I can put the blinkers on and hide from all the really difficult things I need to address.’

‘By which you mean: I can think only about myself. That comes very easily to me.’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s why I’ve always been in a career I hate, it’s why I never talk about my family. I can live in denial very comfortably.’

I wasn’t going to let this become a sympathetic psychoanalytical study of who he was. ‘What do you want?’

‘I love you and I’m unhappy without you. I’ve been doing everything I can for months to avoid the fact that I know we’re meant to be together.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, sitting down on the chair. ‘At all. I don’t think you actually care about me. I think you care that an experience that might be good for you has ended.’

‘I know it would take a lot for you to trust me again, but I really, really would do anything for you to consider it. I don’t mind how slowly we go, or how long it takes.’ I stared at the table. ‘Have you been happy without me?’

‘Of course I haven’t. It’s been terrible.’

He tensed his features in pain. ‘I hate that.’

‘I’ve known I’ll be fine. It’s easier, being heartbroken in your thirties, because no matter how painful it is, you know it will pass. I don’t believe one other human has the power to ruin my life any more.’

He came over and sat on the seat next to mine. ‘How unromantic,’ he said.

‘It was so needlessly dramatic, Max. I don’t understand why you had to end it in such an extreme way. You could have just told me you were having doubts, or even just broken up with me.’

‘I couldn’t face it. I was too cowardly to look at what was really going on, so I just deleted you.’

The brutality of this admission shocked me, despite having known for some time this was the reason for his disappearance. ‘You can’t “delete” a human you love. I’m not a picture on your phone,’ I said, sitting back in my chair and rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms. I was so tired. ‘Or maybe that’s exactly what I am to you, maybe that’s what happens when you meet someone on a dating app.’

‘It was nothing to do with you. I know you’re smart enough to not need me to tell you that.’

I hated how my body reacted to these glowing paternalistic assessments of my intellect that Max occasionally dispensed. ‘What was it to do with then? I really need to understand.’

He leant on the table and rested his head on his hand. ‘I was so unhappy when I met you, I realize now. I was a mess. I absolutely hate my job, but I don’t know what else I want to do. I hate living in London, but I don’t know where I want to go. I have next to no relationship with my family. All my friends have their own proper adult lives that keep them occupied. I don’t have any sort of settled life. Then I fell in love with this woman who was so together and focused. Who is successful, who’s happy, who has all these meaningful relationships. Even with her ex-boyfriend. And I knew that if I was going to properly commit to you, I’d have to become the man I’ve been putting off becoming. And I wasn’t ready to. I wasn’t ready to grow up.’

‘I didn’t ask you to change.’

‘I know.’

‘And I am not “so together”. Everything’s coming apart. My dad has got really bad – he keeps having accidents and forgetting who I am. Mum and I argue all the time. We’ve had to get a nurse to help us. I don’t know when or how we need to get more help. I can’t seem to write about anything other than about him. Katherine and I had an enormous row. I’m scared of being in my own home because I’m pretty certain my neighbour is really dangerous. And I’m alone.’ My voice wavered. Max reached his hand out towards mine on the table and held it. ‘I am really fucking alone.’

He knelt on the floor in front of me, held my chin in his hands and tentatively kissed me. He smelt of tobacco – like wood and raisins. He stroked my cheek with his thumb and clutched the back of my head with his palm. I slid off my chair and sank to the floor, so we were both on our knees. We undressed each other and he lay on top of me, pressing his heavy warmth against my body and opening me up, firmly and slowly. And then it was urgent – as if we were now both worried the other would disappear. Only one part of me remained in my skin while other Ninas detached and circulated the room. There was one who was a spectator of the clawing and clinging; who couldn’t believe Max was inside my home and inside me – that I could not only look up to see his face but feel his body temperature permeate mine. One Nina rejoiced, another one was scared. Another Nina examined him – every move and every sound – to find evidence of where he’d been since I’d last seen him. I’ve missed you, he said to me as we fought for breath. I’ve missed you so fucking much.

We lay naked on our backs, side by side on the living-room rug with only our fingertips touching. I stared at the long thin line that stretched across the plaster of my ceiling like a crack in dry soil.

‘I want tea,’ I said. I went to stand up, but he tugged my hand.

‘Stay here with me a bit longer.’ He turned me on my side and wrapped his arms around my body. I felt the sweat on his skin against my back. ‘I’ll make us one in a minute.’

‘How many women have you been with since me?’

He buried his face in my hair and breathed deeply. ‘Do you really want to know?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if we are going to be together again, I need to know the whole truth of when we were apart.’

‘And you’re not going to torture yourself with it?’

‘No, of course not, this isn’t a jealousy issue. I’ve assumed you’ve been with other women.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘One.’

‘One? I don’t believe you.’

‘Just one.’

‘You’ve had one night with another woman since me?’

‘Not one night.’

‘How many nights?’