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‘Well, you and Harmony haven’t been getting along. Or at least, I’m presuming you haven’t been, otherwise she wouldn’t have got to the point of giving you an ultimatum, would she?’

Paul looked put out, just as I knew he would be.

‘She said it in the heat of the moment. She didn’t mean it,’ he insisted.

Didn’t she, though?I thought. To be fair to Paul, he did seem to be taking in what I was saying, even though I could see it was difficult for him.

‘OK, you got me,’ he admitted. ‘I can be kinda gloomy and difficult to be around when work gets tough. She’d had enough and I couldn’t blame her.’

‘We’re all snappy sometimes,’ I said gently.

He nodded. ‘Yeah, and you know what? When I do open up to Harmony and let her in instead of starting a row just so I can release some of the tension building up, it feels good. I feel better for getting it out there, you know?’

‘I do.’

Paul squirmed in his seat and then leaned forward to put his head in his hands. For one terrifying moment I thought I’d made him cry, but then thankfully he sat up and looked at me with a sort of wan smile.

‘You’re pretty good at this,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ I said, disproportionately chuffed. I knew how to talk to people about their feelings, that was true. It came easily. I found it interesting and also reassuring to see that not everyone had it as sussed as I’d thought they did. But talking about myself? That was another matter entirely.

‘Your turn,’ said Paul.

‘Already?’ I said, looking at my imaginary watch and playing for time. Melissa had said we had half an hour so if we spent twenty minutes on Paul, my ‘session’ would fly by.

Paul stayed silent for a bit, as though he was pondering some really important question that only he had the answer to. Mind you, at least it was another time-waster.

‘OK,’ he said eventually, huffing dramatically. ‘I think you’re showing the world what you want people to see.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ I said, feeling my defences rise. I was very good at denial, and very persuasive when it came to blindsiding other people into thinking that there was nothing to worry about.

Paul crossed his arms in the self-satisfied way that drove me mad.

‘Yeah. You want people to think you’re strong and invincible and can cope with anything. And maybe you can, some of the time. But I reckon that underneath all of that, you want love and affection as much as the next person.’

His statement hung in the air. I wanted to think of a suitably quippy reply, but of course my ability to banter had to go and abandon me just when I needed it most, and instead I was left staring at him, wondering who he thought he was but also thinking that he could –could– be right.

‘Can we stop now?’ I said, laughing it off. I even looked over at Theo hoping he might save me, just as I had him at the couples therapy session, but oh no, he seemed to be having a whale of a time with Claire. The two of them were absolutely cracking up. Trust me to get stuck with the least easy-going member of the group.

‘You’re trying to defend your way out of this,’ said Paul, smirking at me annoyingly. ‘I can see it, clear as day.’

‘I’m not!’ I protested. But that was my defences talking, wasn’t it? I took a few beats to let what he’d said sink in. ‘OK, maybe I am. But as you know, we didn’t sign up for this. I thought I was on a writing retreat!’

‘Ah, but you could have walked away at any time,’ said Paul. ‘You could have checked into another hotel.’

‘I couldn’t! It would have cost us a fortune.’

‘You know what I think?’ said Paul.

I wanted to say no and that I didn’t care to know, but I bit my tongue.

‘I think that subconsciously, both of you wanted to stay and work through your shit. And you can tell yourself it’s just about your book, but in my opinion, it’s about youwanting to work things out with Theo, whatever the hell that looks like.’

What did he know, he wasn’t a therapist, was he? But then, I also knew, deep down, that he had a point. If I’dreallywanted to leave, I could have sucked up the financial losses and dealt with the consequences later. Something had made me stay. It was the book, I told myself. That was all it was.

‘I’ll give that some thought,’ I lied, unless thinking about hownotto think about it counted.

Thankfully, Melissa chose that moment to tinkle her bell and we all came together again as a group. What we’d discussed was to stay between the two of us, Melissa informed us and I was grateful for small mercies – this way there would be no de-brief and Theo would not have to hear Paul’s skewed theory about why we hadn’t walked away from the retreat on day one.