Chapter 2

I was on my own the entire time after she arrived — he was working late, travelling, at client dinners, always with a reason not to be home. At two in the morning, feeding her in the dark until I was running on nothing, I called him. He said: "You've got Daisy, haven't you?"

I asked him to come home earlier.

He said: "Can you stop doing this? I'm exhausted too."

Doing this. What was I doing exactly?

Needing him was doing this. Wanting to talk to him was doing this. Hoping he'd answer a text was doing this.

Eventually I learned a skill I came to think of as automatic translation. When he said stop making a scene, it meant: your feelings are inconvenient to me. When he said what's there to talk about, it meant: your feelings don't matter. When he said look at other people's wives, it meant: you're not enough.

When Daisy was three, I broke down crying in the living room one evening. He walked out of the bedroom, looked at me, and said: "What's wrong now?"

I said: "Can you just hold me for a moment?"

He sighed. He turned around. The bedroom door clicked shut.

That was the first time I understood that what was between us wasn't a door. It was ten thousand miles.

But I didn't stop. I kept sending messages. I kept waiting. I told myself that if I just tried a little harder, he'd turn around and actually see me.

Ten years.

I chased for ten years.

I chased until I didn't recognise myself anymore.

At university, I'd been at the top of my course. My final-year project won a distinction. My supervisor put me forward for a placement at a respected design studio. I turned it down, because Nathan had signed a job offer in this city and I thought: being together is what matters most.

Then Daisy came and I quit working altogether to look after her full-time. Nathan said: "Makes sense. Saves us hiring a nanny."

That studio went on to become one of the best in the country. Occasionally I'd see their work come up on Instagram — a campaign, a rebrand — and I'd stop and look at it for a long time.

Then I'd lock my phone and go back to washing the bottles.

Change happens slowly.

The first week after I stopped chasing Nathan, I felt off-balance. My hand would reach for my phone out of habit, wanting to open our chat to see if he'd replied. Then I'd remember — I hadn't sent anything. Nothing sent, nothing to wait for.

It was a strange sensation. Like someone who's been running for ten years suddenly braking. The momentum still carries you forward, but your feet have already stopped.

On day three, instead of going straight home after work, I turned down a side street I'd never taken before. At the far end was a gym. Orange light behind the glass door.

I stood outside for half a minute and then pushed the door open.

"Would you like to try a taster session?" the girl at the front desk asked.

"I'll take an annual membership," I said.

It wasn't a small sum. I didn't hesitate.

It was the first time I'd spent a significant amount of money on myself without sending Nathan a message about it afterward. Before, anything over twenty pounds and I'd report it to him — a habit I'd formed without noticing. He always said the same thing: "Sure, if it makes you happy." Which, translated, meant: I don't care.

I wasn't reporting this to anyone.

On day five, I dug out a grey canvas bag from the back of a cupboard. Inside were my old university sketchbooks, design drafts, and a letter from the studio that had offered me a placement all those years ago. The offer had expired years ago, obviously. But the sketches were still there.

When I opened the first page, I caught the smell of old paper.

Daisy came and peered over my shoulder.

"Did you draw these, Mummy? They're so pretty!"

"I did. I used to draw."

"Used to? You can't anymore?"

I looked at her small, earnest face.

"I still can," I said. "I just haven't for a long time."

That evening, after Daisy fell asleep, I cleared the kitchen table, laid out a sheet of paper, and drew something. My hand was rusty. The lines weren't as clean as they once were. But when I put down the last stroke, something shifted in my chest — like a pipe that's been blocked for years finally letting a single drop through.

In those two weeks, Nathan noticed nothing.

I didn't text him; he didn't ask why. I didn't call; he didn't call either. I didn't wait by the door; he came home, took off his shoes, ate dinner, scrolled his phone, went to sleep. Everything as it had always been.

I realised, for the first time, just how little space I took up in his world. So little that I could vanish entirely and he wouldn't notice.

Once, I would have found that devastating.

Now I thought: fine. It means that me stopping made no difference to him at all. Which means ten years of chasing achieved — what, exactly?

Nothing.

Those four words, arriving quietly, were sharper than any time he'd cut a call short. But underneath the sharpness was something unfamiliar: lightness.

Claire took me out for dinner.

She's the only university friend I've kept up with. She's the only person who ever listened without trying to fix things.

She took one look at me across the table. "You look different. Better."

"Do I?"

"Before, every time we met, your first sentence was always something like 'he didn't text me back again.' You haven't said that today."

I smiled. "I stopped chasing him."

She put her chopstick down and looked at me for a long moment.

Then she clapped. Three times, loud enough that the people at the next table glanced over.

"Sophie," she said, "that is the clearest-headed thing you've said in ten years."

I wanted to cry. I held it together.

I'd used up my crying allowance a long time ago.