Today would have been my mother’s sixty-fifth birthday. I often wondered what she would have been like if she’d lived – whether we’d be going out for a meal, or whether I’d treat her to a pampering session. Or maybe a weekend away somewhere. I wondered if we’d be good friends, whether I could call her up on a whim, wanting a chat, wanting comfort, wanting to hear a friendly voice.

I missed her.

If she’d lived, my life might have been different altogether. If they’d not both died in my final year of university, I might not have behaved the way I did. I might not have got drunk every night, slept around, done drugs, woken up in strange houses wondering where I was and what I’d done the night before. I might have got a better degree; I might be some CEO now, running a global organisation, instead of running a personnel office in a plastics manufacturing plant.

I might not have been going to the River that first night, Hallowe’en, wearing a red satin dress, with my heart wide open and ready to be broken. I might not have worn that jacket, with the receipt for the last time I’d bought a tea in the gym’s café, in the pocket. I might not have left the receipt in the pocket, where he could have searched and found it, and discovered a way of finding me again. I might have got away without ever seeing him again.

I might have escaped.

And even now, maybe if my mum and dad were still alive, maybe they would have been able to counsel me away from him. They would have recognised him as dangerous. Would I have listened? Maybe not.

If Mum had lived, maybe I would have married someone by now, someone kind, stable, honest; maybe I’d have a child, maybe two, maybe three.

No point in thinking about what might have been. Today is going to be the start of my fight back, I decided – the way I decided every day, until he turned up at my house, let himself in, and turned it back round until it was nicely under his control.

Today was different, though.

I had an email from Jonathan Baldwin. I remembered him, although not immediately. We were on a month-long training course together, four years ago, in Manchester. He appeared outgoing, enthusiastic, we had a laugh together and I seemed to remember promising to keep in touch, although we never had. He emailed me at work out of the blue, to see how I was doing. He said he was setting up a branch of his management consultancy business in New York and asked if I’d worked with anyone I could recommend. I emailed back and said I would give it some thought and let him know. It felt a bit like a sign, for me. I wondered if New York could be the answer.

Lee was waiting for me when I got home from work.

Not on the doorstep, as he used to once upon a time – no, inside, in the kitchen, busy making us some dinner. He used to do that, before, and I would be pleased. Today, when I opened the door and smelled the cooking smells, I just wanted to run. But running didn’t get me anywhere.

He would let himself in whenever he felt like it, come and go as he pleased. I remembered when this was such a big deal for me, not so long ago. I’d wanted my own space, my front door that I could lock behind me and know for sure that nobody was going to be inside there without me. I remembered telling him that I wanted that space back. I remembered asking him for the key, and him walking away from me. I remembered him simply walking away and leaving, without so much as an argument.

When I thought back to that time, I couldn’t believe that he’d let me go so easily, and that I was such a fool, such a stupid fool, as to go looking for him. I could have got away. If I’d left him alone, avoided him completely, started going out with my friends again, I could have been free.

But I didn’t.