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‘Theo, let’s talk about it. Can you vocalise how you’re feeling right now?’ asked Melissa.

‘Like I’m going to go back to my room and drink the entire contents of the mini bar?’ he said, raking his hands through his hair.

‘You’ve had quite an extreme reaction to my question,’ pointed out Melissa. I mean, she wasn’t wrong. ‘Is there something the two of you want to share with the group? Something that might be stopping you from moving forward with your relationship, whatever that might look like?’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I said under my breath, but loudly enough that I caught Paul and Harmony giving each othera knowing look. I hoped when it was their turn some dark secret would be pulled out of them so that they were one iota less smug about the whole thing.

I shot up and out of my seat. It felt like a stand had to be made, but against what I wasn’t quite sure, because Melissa was only asking a perfectly reasonable question, one that I already felt bad about lying about. I desperately tried to convince myself that I’d told a version of the truth. There was nothing romantic about what had happened between us, not outside of the fairytale that had momentarily played out in my head, anyway. It felt like all eyes were on me, even Theo’s, and my skin was burning up under the gaze of all these people who had actual, proper relationships and OK, they clearly weren’t perfect otherwise they wouldn’t be here, but what if Melissa was right? What if I was incapable of truly being in a loving relationship; what if I was too scared to be, and that what had happened before hadn’t been all about Theo being an arsehole, it had been about me not being able to give him what he needed, too?

‘I’m just going to get a glass of water,’ I said, waiting for approval and then deciding I was a grown adult and didn’t need it. ‘Back in a sec.’

As I stalked out to the bar in reception, trying to gather my thoughts, I imagined what they were all saying, or if not saying, thinking. That I was hiding something. That I wasn’t engaging in the process, just as Harmony had predicted on day one. I slid onto a bar stool and waited for the barman, who was making a row of margaritas for a group of giggling women. It was somebody’s big birthday, I reckoned. The big 4-0, perhaps. In any case, the hold-up at the bar would buy me some time and that suited me fine because I was already wishing that the night had gone differently and that I’d been able to brazen it out, laugh Melissa’s insights off. Theoand I had done such a good job of pretending that nothing had happened between us to anyone who ever asked – why couldn’t we have done it one more time? That was therapy for you, Alexa would have said.

I did rejoin the group eventually, attempting to slip into my seat unnoticed, which was pretty much impossible when I’d just made a massive spectacle of myself. Theo, who I was half-expecting to have stomped off to his room, was still here, albeit looking moody with his arms tightly crossed. Our arms weren’t touching this time and instead there seemed to be a sort of gulf between us again, like there had been in the taxi from the airport. Bloody couples therapy. And to add to the nightmare, just as I’d thought we were off the hook, Melissa had honed in on me and told me in front of everyone that I spent too much time checking my phone and that this retreat was supposed to be about me working on myself, not working to sort everyone else’s problems out for them.

‘I challenge you to leave your phone in your room at all times, Scarlett. Let’s see how it feels for you to focus on you and only you.’

I’d spluttered and protested over her ground rules (no bringing my phone with me anywhere; no checking messages until bedtime), but to no avail, and somehow I’d found myself agreeing to give her stupid challenge a go.

Afterwards we all went for a drink at the bar which I would have skipped if I hadn’t had the feeling that I had to over-compensate for my rather dramatic behaviour earlier. I hadn’t been able to do what Melissa had asked of me: I hadn’t felt able to dig deep and really think about what had gone wrong before, and why I’d felt the way I’d felt, and Ihadn’t been able to think about how my mum’s death might have affected every relationship I’d ever had. It was different for the other couples, they wanted to spend a lifetime together, it was important that they hashed things out. But Theo and I just needed to get through the next few days and then we could go our separate ways again. OK, there might be a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with the book, but there was always Zoom. I thought things might be easier if we weren’t physically in the same room.

‘Hey,’ said Claire, elbowing Rob out of the way to rush up to me. ‘That was pretty intense. Are you OK?’

I nodded. ‘Bit embarrassing, but I’ll get over it.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, Paul and Harmony didn’t get off scot-free either,’ disclosed Claire. ‘While you were getting your glass of water, Melissa asked Harmony why she’d threatened to leave Paul if she hadn’t meant it. You could have heard a pin drop it was so tense.’

I shuddered. ‘Hardcore.’

‘I know. And not to alarm you, but Theo keeps looking at you.’

I looked over my shoulder and caught his eye for a second, feeling a tug in my gut, as though there was an invisible line from him to me, connecting us together.

‘Isthere something you’re finding difficult to share with us all?’ asked Claire, lowering her voice. ‘Because you could just talk it through with me if that would help. Did something happen between the two of you when you wrote the book before? Is that why you fell out?’

I trusted Claire, and in the spirit of being on this retreat, I did want to explore my feelings about Theo and how our working relationship had basically imploded. Melissa was always going on about change being difficult, which I couldn’t argue with. If I wanted to move forward and live my life tothe full and potentially have another relationship one day, get married even (although annoyingly Theo popped into my mind’s eye, as though I would ever be marryinghim), then I was going to have to take a risk and do something differently.

I sighed. ‘It’s hard for me to think about, that’s all, because I expended so much energy on blocking the whole thing out.’

‘Blocking what out?’ asked Claire, clearly intrigued.

‘God, where to start?’

Claire smiled at me and her face was so warm and open that it was impossible not to tell her literally everything. ‘It’s good to be brave. Go on, start at the beginning. I know you met at an evening class. How did you end up writing a book together?’

‘On the last day of our course, he approached me in the pub and asked me if I wanted to try writing something together. I’d loved the extracts he’d shared with the group and we both wanted to write a thriller, so I thought:Why not?We began to meet up regularly after that, maybe twice or three times a week. Usually after work, but sometimes at weekends. We’d write together and then share our work and critique each other’s. The usual.’

‘And then what, you started to get closer?’ asked Claire.

‘Yeah,’ I said, cringing. What on earth had possessed me? ‘Which was stupid of me, because I’d seen first-hand how he kept people at arm’s length, especially women. When we were writing together, he’d usually get at least one message from someone he was planning to meet that evening. And I never got to meet any of them because after about three dates he’d stop mentioning them and I’d ask him what happened and he’d give some feeble excuse about him just “not feeling it”. I used to joke with him that I was glad we were just friends.’Claire frowned. ‘I couldn’t imagine him being like that now.’

I shrugged.

‘What happened next?’ asked Claire.

I took a breath, giving myself permission to really think about it.

‘The more time I spent with him, the more difficult it was to ignore the fact that I’d started to really like him,’ I admitted. ‘And even though the rational part of my brain knew that he wouldn’t be able to give me what I wanted, I thought that maybe the connection we had was special enough to change him.’