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Zeph jerked upright when he heard the pounding at the door.

He grabbed his phone. Ten in the morning.

He’d had another bad night and still been awake at three.

He pulled on his jeans. If it wasn’t Jack, he didn’t want to be naked.

But the guy who stood outside was a scowling stranger in his early fifties.

“Today you leave,” the man said in broken English. “Your time here done. I’m Beno?t. Caretaker.”

“Leave?”

“Owner of house come. You need go so we clean.”

Zeph saw a woman walking away from a van. She was pushing a cart of cleaning materials. His heart sank. “Can you give me twenty minutes to shower and pack, please?”

“Okay. We start outside.”

Zeph closed the door and leaned back against it with his heart clamping.

He had no choice now but to accept Jack wasn’t coming back.

He’d have known how much time they had left there.

Why hadn’t he said? Zeph couldn’t even leave a note.

Beno?t would throw it away. He still wrote one and left it in the kitchen.

The owner wants the place back and since I don’t know how long you’ll be, I’m going home. I tried your phone and couldn’t get through. Come and find me. Z

Then he wrote another one.

I’ve had to leave. The owner is coming to the house. Don’t leave it so long next time. Z

He threw them both in the bin. He wasn’t saying anything Jack didn’t know. If Jack wanted to find him again, he would. And if Zeph was being sensible, he ought to not want Jack to find him. He was pissed off that Jack didn’t even have the guts to be honest with him. Really pissed off.

He quickly showered, dressed and packed.

Before he lost Wi-Fi, he looked up how to get to Paris.

Six days if he walked. Ha! Or around four hours by train via Bordeaux.

But he had to get to Léon, then to Dax to catch the train to Bordeaux and that had to be by taxi.

It was expensive. Eighty Euros for a cab. But he booked it.

Zeph took a couple of bottles of water from the fridge, three books—he’d left his own in exchange—put his straw hat on his head and walked out. Beno?t and the woman went inside and closed the door.

It was only then that the enormity of it sank in. Sadness swamped his anger. Jack was gone. He wasn’t coming back. Even if Zeph could wait for him, there was no point. The holiday was over. It was all over.

As he sat on the wall waiting for the cab, he told himself to be grateful, because it had been fun. He might not know where Jack was, and had no way to get in touch with him, but Jack knew Zeph’s number. It was up to him.

Would he call?

Should Zeph want him to? Oh God. How can I not?

He spent the journey back to Paris switching between hope and despair, anger and worry.

When he reached the capital in the middle of the afternoon, despair was in charge.

He’d hoped to be here with Jack, doing touristy things…

and non-touristy things. Instead, Paris was a means to an end.

Zeph travelled from Montparnasse to Gare du Nord, bought a Eurostar ticket and reached London by eight.

Another train, then a cab and he was home. He’d lost the straw hat somewhere.

Zeph had held himself together all the way back with little knots, tying them when he found his mind wandering, and it had worked. He’d been determined to keep doing that when he got home, but as he headed for the door, he could feel himself unravelling, all the knots coming undone.

As he went in, he called, “It’s only me.”

Martin and Paulo emerged from the living room and Zeph put down his suitbag and backpack.

“You couldn’t call?” Martin pulled Zeph into his arms. “We’d have collected you from the station.”

“Battery dead. Sorry.”

Paulo hugged them both.

“Are you okay?” Martin pinned him with his gaze. “We didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“Where’ve you been? Did you get to Portugal?” Paulo asked.

Zeph eased free. “No. Not that far. We stayed for ages in France. I was with Jack.”

The pair exchanged glances. “We guessed,” Martin said.

“I thought you’d try to persuade me not to go.”

Paulo shook his head. “Your choice. Your life. I’m sorry he let you down again.”

“It’s not that,” Zeph said, cross with himself for repeating Jack’s lie.

“He had to go on an urgent job and wasn’t sure how long he’d be away so I decided to come home.

Not so much fun on your own. I’m beat though.

I’ve been travelling all day. Can I tell you all about it tomorrow? I need a shower and bed.”

“Nothing to eat?” Paulo asked.

“I’m fine, thanks. Just exhausted.” He managed a smile, but when he was curled up in bed, he silently allowed his tears to fall.

What he felt for Jack was so huge, so overwhelming, it had changed something inside him.

It made him believe in a future. But Jack had gone.

Zeph might never see him again and his hopes lay shattered at his feet.

But broken hearts could mend. Zeph’s had before and it would again.

Not completely. Never that. But enough. It would take time, but the pain would go and the humiliation would fade.

He had to believe that or what was the point in anything?

He’d miss him. Even as he told himself not to, he reached for his phone and looked for his favourite photo.

The only one he’d saved. When he couldn’t find it, he knew why.

Last time, he’d given Jack the benefit of the doubt. Unless he phoned and explained, Zeph wouldn’t do that again. He’d forgiven him too easily.

He’d revert to his plan.

Pull himself together.

Not let anyone see how much he was hurting.

Earn money until he returned to Cambridge.

Not hope for Jack to call.

He managed a few of those. Well, one to be exact. He earned money.

The day Zeph was due to return to university, he had an email from the Student Loan Company. He assumed it was a notification that the first instalment had been paid for his tuition, but when he read what it said, he gasped.

“What’s up?” Martin asked.

Zeph checked the message again, to be sure he’d not made a mistake, but he hadn’t.

“It says all my student debt and the whole of this year’s tuition fees have been paid.” He showed Martin. “Did you do this?”

Martin read it over his shoulder and shook his head. “I wish I could say yes, but no.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“You told me you didn’t want us to help. But we couldn’t have afforded that amount.”

Paulo put three coffees on the table. “Your father?”

Zeph almost laughed. Martin did laugh.

“No way,” Zeph said.

“Then who?” Paulo asked.

“Does it matter?” Martin shrugged. “If they want Zeph to know, they’ll tell him, right?”

“Could you ask the loan company?” Paulo suggested.

“I’ll do that.”

After breakfast, he went up to his room and called them. He somehow wasn’t surprised to be told that they weren’t able to divulge who’d paid the fees.

“Lucky you!” the woman said.

Yes, but…

Zeph had a short list of who might have done it.

He’d done well in his second-year exams, a first in every paper.

He’d already been told by his college that he’d been awarded two prizes, but that was a few hundred pounds not twenty-five thousand.

Maybe the university had awarded him some sort of scholarship, but he’d have been told, surely, and the amount was staggering.

So it had to be Jack. Except security work didn’t pay that well. So maybe not Jack. But even considering it might have been him made Zeph’s heart break all over again. One day, it might be too fragile to be mended.

Martin and Paulo took him back to university that lunchtime. Zeph had an ensuite room on the top floor of one of the staircases with a lovely view of the college quadrangle. Except he’d be staring out at people holding hands, having fun.

The three of them lugged his stuff up the stairs and Paulo insisted on hanging up Zeph’s clothes and making his bed before they left.

“We’re going to miss you.” Martin hugged him and Paulo hugged both of them as he usually did.

“Make sure you have fun too,” Paulo told him. “All work and no play makes—”

Martin slipped his hand over Paulo’s mouth.

“It’s okay,” Zeph said. “I’m not going to freak out if I hear the name Jack.”

He’d not hidden that Jack hadn’t been in touch.

It hadn’t taken long before they figured out Zeph had been dumped.

He’d gone to work at the garden centre every day, done his job, but he’d had no calls from Jack and he’d not gone out in the evening.

Paulo had asked him if he’d wanted to talk but he didn’t.

There was nothing to say that would make this better.

“He didn’t deserve you,” Martin whispered. “Find someone who’ll give you their heart and want you to keep it.”

Don’t make me cry.

Zeph managed to hold it together until they’d left, then he sat on his bed and wept.

Since Jack had left him in France, Zeph’s world had not been fun.

All the joy he’d felt with Jack, every moment filled with wonder, pleasure, excitement…

it had been so overwhelming that to suddenly be deprived of it had left him depressed and broken.

Jack had warned him. But how were you supposed to stop yourself falling in love?

How could you protect yourself against that?

Even with Jack’s words still ringing in his head, Zeph wished he’d told Jack that he loved him. But he couldn’t carry on like this. He had to make a decision. What would hurt the most? Missing Jack or pretending not to miss him?

Maybe he should he glad he’d not told Jack how he felt because knowing it wouldn’t have been enough to persuade Jack to stay was almost too much to bear. My love wasn’t enough. His stomach churned and he rushed to the bathroom and threw up.

He had to change. If he wanted to achieve his other goals, the ones that were attainable, he had to stop hoping Jack found him again.