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      ‘Fine,’ he replied. So help me god, if he said ‘fine’ one more time … ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

      ‘When?’ I asked. ‘Specifically?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. For the first time since he’d shown up, he actually looked like he was in pain. Without warning, all my fire and brimstone burned away, leaving nothing but a stick figure, holding onto a bunch of broken flowers with a lump in my throat. ‘But I will call you.’

      ‘OK.’

      My gaze settled on his shoes and I couldn’t even look at him. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so unsure around him and that included the time I got so drunk, the second time I stayed over at his house that I puked into his pillowcase.

      He automatically stepped towards me for a kiss but stopped just before he reached me. My shoulders seized as he pressed his lips against my cheek instead.

      ‘See you later, Liv.’

      I watched as he climbed into the car and drove away, shopping bags bouncing around in the back seat.

      ‘You all right?’ David asked behind me, opening the door slowly. ‘Want me to tell Mr Harries to stop being such a daft twat and send him home?’

      ‘No.’ I turned on my heel, handing him my flowers, taking a deep breath. Not yet, not yet, not yet. ‘I think doing that myself might actually make me feel a bit better. There’s only an hour of surgery left, I’ll be OK.’

      ‘Sainsbury’s?’ he turned the bouquet over in his hands and gave it a disapproving sniff. ‘Even I know better than that. Shall I put them in water?’

      ‘Water or the bin, I don’t really care as long as I don’t have to look at them.’

      ‘Excellent choice.’ David closed the door behind us as I strode back into the surgery. ‘Glad to see you’re OK. I heard some of it. What a tosspot.’

      ‘Not now,’ I said, taking out my topknot, winding it up and wrapping the elastic band around my hair so securely, I looked like one of the Real Housewives. All of the Real Housewives. ‘Give me a minute and then send in Mr Harries, please?’

      I swallowed hard and the edges of my vision began to blur. Not yet, I told myself, not until I was alone.

      ‘Whatever you say, doc,’ he said, unconvinced. ‘I might pop upstairs and put a bottle of wine in the fridge as well. Just in case we fancy an after work bevvy.’

      ‘Make it two,’ I called after him. ‘Dinner and dessert.’

      ‘That’s why you’re the boss,’ he said, shooting me the double guns. ‘You’re so wise.’

      I watched as he sauntered off down the hallway, holding my flowers to his chest like Miss World. Despite being considerably younger than me, and one hundred per cent more male, he was usually right about most things, but in this instance I wasn’t so sure. I certainly didn’t feel very wise. I closed the back door to the examination room and made sure the other door that opened into the waiting room was securely latched. Safely locked away, I lay back on the steel examination table and popped my stethoscope around my neck, bouncing the weight of the drum in the palm of my hand until I calmed down. I loved my stethoscope so much, sometimes I put it on with my pyjamas while I was watching telly but today it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t sure if anything was.

      ‘What is happening?’ I whispered, staring up at the flickering fluorescent tube above me.

      Two fat tears slid out the corners of my eyes, ran over my temples and into my hair. Had I spent so much time fretting over when he was going to propose, I’d missed the signs of an impending break-up? This wasn’t my first rodeo; I’d been the dumper and the dumped in my thirty years on this planet but I hadn’t seen this coming. Adam and me weren’t supposed to break up, ever. He was mine and I was his, why would I have looked for signs?

      Was this why he was so anxious on Monday night? Not because he was going to propose but because he knew he was going to break up with me when we got home. Another warm tear plopped out of my left eye and made a beeline for my inner ear, making me shiver. But then he’d changed his mind. Probably got home to an empty bed and realized it was easier to keep me around than to find someone new. Probably couldn’t be bothered to work out which DVDs were mine and return them.

      I laid the drum of my stethoscope on top of my chest and listened for my heartbeat. It was still going which was something of an achievement in itself.

      ‘Hello?’

      The handle of the waiting-room door turned and the door knocked against the latch. Sitting up, I wobbled for a moment, almost falling off the table before catching myself, wiping my face and giving a loud, satisfying sniff.

      ‘Just a moment,’ I called through the door as I splashed my face with cold water. ‘I’m almost ready, Mr Harries.’

      Just three more appointments, just one more hour to get through.

      With a deep breath that stuck in my throat, I pushed myself out of my mind and opened the door. A sandy-haired older gentleman carrying a long-haired black cat in a shopping bag held up his hand politely as he walked in. The cat was wearing a hand-knitted jumper with a picture of what I took to be Olaf from Frozen emblazoned on the back.

      ‘Mr Harries, I thought we’d talked about getting rid of Jeremy’s woolly jumpers?’ I said as gently as possible, turning away to dab my runny nose with my sleeve. ‘They’re what’s causing all the hairballs.’

      ‘But he loves them,’ Mr Harries protested. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said, sharing a despairing glance with poor Jeremy. ‘I really don’t know.’

       5

      ‘And that’s how I blew up the microwave,’ Dad finished his story with pride. ‘It was only a small fire and I put it right out, no problems. Scorched the curtain a bit but you can’t tell unless you look.’

      ‘It was time we replaced that microwave anyway,’ Chris said, waving his hand as he laid down his decree. ‘I’ll get you a new one, a better one. Mine’s brilliant, does everything except wipe your arse. Amazing.’

      ‘You could get a gold-plated microwave that shits unicorn droppings, it’ll still blow up if you put metal in it,’ I pointed out.

      ‘I still can’t understand why you were trying to heat up a yoghurt.’

      ’I wanted to know what would happen,’ Dad replied. ‘Now I do.’

      ‘You should sue them,’ Chris went on. ‘It should say on it that you’re not supposed to microwave yoghurt pots.’

      ‘You can’t sue the manufacturers for human error,’ I said. ‘I think you just need to be more careful, Dad.’

      ‘And I think you shouldn’t take legal advice from a law school dropout.’ Chris twisted around in Mum’s favourite armchair to give me the full benefit of his smug, older-brother expression. ‘I’ll get a new microwave sent over before Mum gets back. She’ll never know.’

      ‘She doesn’t use it any more anyway.’ Dad merrily ignored the pair of us, having done a wonderful job of developing selective hearing over the years. ‘I’ll tell her I got rid of it because of the radiation. She’ll be made up.’

      ‘I’ll get you a good one,’ Chris said, already looking at microwaves on his phone. ‘Can’t have you and Mum getting into accidents. We probably ought to replace the whole kitchen.’

      ‘We’re not senile quite yet,’ Dad said, pushing himself up to his feet as the doorbell rang. ‘You don’t need to put a catch on the toilet to stop me falling in.’

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