I thought I saw him again today.

It was almost a relief, in the end.

Stuart had worked late, so I left him asleep and took myself off to the High Street to pick up some shopping. It started in the Co-op – the normal feeling of being watched, but stronger than usual. The shop was pretty busy, lots of people in each aisle, and everywhere I went were faces that looked familiar, people I thought I’d seen before.

When I was queueing at the checkouts behind three other people, the feeling became more acute. I looked up, and he was standing by the fruit and vegetable section, across the other side of the store, staring right at me. I had no doubt that it was him, although he looked different in some way; I couldn’t work it out at first.

I told myself it was okay. In the checkout queue I practised breathing deeply, regularly, making each breath the most important thing in that moment, even though I really wanted to scream and run away.

It isn’t real, I told myself. This is part of the OCD. This is your fertile imagination catching up with you. He’s not real. It’s just some man who looks a bit like him, you know all this. He isn’t here.

When I looked over again, he had gone.

I got home with my bags of shopping, checking all the time to see if I could see him anywhere – shop doorways, the front seat of passing cars, crossing the road behind me, walking away, all these were places I’d seen him before.

Nothing more. Maybe I’d imagined it – someone who looked a bit like him?

At home I checked the flat before I went upstairs to Stuart with the shopping. I started at the front door, worked my way around the whole flat, finishing up in the bedroom. Everything was normal. I was almost desperate to find something wrong, something out of place, that would prove that he had been in here, but really I hadn’t been gone long enough. Not if he had been out there watching me; after all, even Lee couldn’t be in two places at once.

I woke Stuart up with a cup of tea and a kiss. When he opened his eyes and yawned, he pulled back the duvet and gave me an inviting smile, so I could climb into bed next to him. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more right at that moment than to take all my clothes off and snuggle up to my warm-skinned, naked boyfriend.

I wasn’t going to tell him about seeing Lee, but afterwards, when I lay with my head on his shoulder, he suddenly said, ‘You’re not your usual self today.’

I raised my head to look at him. ‘Aren’t I? What do you mean?’

He rolled onto his stomach and propped himself on his elbows so he could look at me. He took my hand and kissed the palm, then slowly stroked his fingers up my arms, across the scars, looking at them intently. ‘Something happened?’

I shrugged. ‘Not really. I thought I saw someone I knew in the shop, that’s all.’

‘You mean Lee?’

Unlike me, he had no issues with saying his name. Stuart was always very good at facing fear, naming it, dealing with it and moving on. Something I was just starting to learn.

‘I thought it was. But it was only for a moment.’

He studied me with that intent green-eyed gaze he has, as though I’m the only person in the whole world. ‘You see him all the time,’ he said. It wasn’t a question. We’d talked about this before.

 ‘This was different.’

‘Different how?’

I didn’t want to do this, I didn’t want to admit to it, because talking about this made it real. If I kept it to myself I could still pretend I’d imagined it. But there was no point at all in trying to end this conversation – he wouldn’t let it go until he’d probed me to his complete satisfaction.

‘He was wearing different clothes. His hair was shorter. Okay? Happy?’ I wriggled away from him and got out of bed, pulling my clothes back on.

He watched me with that expression he has, part amusement, part curiosity. ‘Remember when you asked me, months ago, why I couldn’t be the one to help you?’

‘Hm.’

‘Well, this is why.’ He caught my wrist and pulled me down onto the bed next to him, tickled me until I couldn’t help laughing.

Then he stopped, and looked at me seriously. ‘Move in with me,’ he said.

‘Give over. I practically live here as it is.’

‘So move in. Save some money. Be with me all the time.’

‘So you can protect me?’

‘If you like.’

Sudden realisation dawned. ‘You think it was him,’ I said.

He’d been caught out. ‘Not necessarily.’

‘Not necessarily? What the fuck does that mean?’

He hesitated for a few moments before answering. ‘It means I think you’re a rational person. We know Lee was released from custody a few months ago. We still don’t have an explanation for that button finding its way into your pocket. But besides that, I think you’re aware of your condition now to the extent that you know when something is unlikely to be part of your brain’s processing, and you think it might have been him, ergo, I think it might have been him.’

‘Stop talking like a fucking psychologist,’ I said, hitting him with a pillow.

‘If I were to agree to that, how would it make you feel?’ he said with a wry grin.

I rolled my eyes at him.

‘Seriously,’ he said, when I was wrapped in his arms again. ‘This time it was different. So we can reach one of two conclusions – the most likely being that you saw someone who reminded you of him, but was simultaneously different enough for you to be unsure, which is unusual.’

‘Who was staring at me from one side of the supermarket to the other,’ I added.

‘In other words, a considerable distance from where you were.’

I didn’t want to think about what the second of the two conclusions might have been. I tried to distract him by kissing him, a long, slow, deep kiss that lasted for minute after minute. He was very good at kissing, without having any agenda – he could just kiss me without ever demanding more.

‘Are you going to do it?’ he asked, at last, quietly, his face close to mine.

‘Do what?’

‘Come live with me.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. I don’t think he had honestly expected much more than that.