It amazed me how mercurial she could be. In an instant, she could swing from being nasty to playing the aggrieved, impoverished single mother perfectly.

“Fuck off, Ma. You didn’t put food on the table when I was a kid. I did. You didn’t raise me. I raised myself with a little help from Danny and Kieran’s Ma. I’ve been the fucking single parent, not you. If you want money, sell your house. You don’t need a three-bedroom place to yourself. But whatever you’re gonna do, fuck off and do it so that I can get on with the rest of my fucking life.”

Even with my touch to ground him, Sylvia had pushed him pretty close to the edge. Her little play on the heartstrings was like Frank telling me that he was raping me for my own good. She’d played her last hand as far as O’Connell was concerned.

“Fine. If that’s the way you feel, perhaps we’ll talk again when you’ve calmed down,” Sylvia said stiffly as she got out of the booth.

“No, Ma. There won’t be any more talking. Go away and don’t come back.”

“You don’t mean that. Without you I don’t have anything to live for,” she pleaded.

“Bullshit! I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve threatened me with suicide. You do what you want, but that’s your choice, not mine. And if you think that some half-hearted attempt will work like last time, you’re wrong. I’ll have you institutionalised for psychiatric problems and put on suicide watch.”

Sylvia paled, and I wondered if that was exactly what she’d planned to do next. O’Connell had her flustered, and I guessed that didn’t happen often. She smoothed down her skirt that was far too short for someone her age, picked up her handbag, and with one more death stare at me walked out of the door.

“You okay?” Mike asked me. I nodded, and with a small sympathetic smile, he headed back to the kitchen. O’Connell looked around at the cafe’s noisy patrons and all but growled as peopled hurried to divert their attention back to their own meals and away from our drama. O’Connell turned toward me, and in an unusual display of vulnerability, rested his forehead on my shoulder wearily.

“How did you know she was here?” I asked.

“Tommy said she was sniffing round the gym when I was running, looking for you. I didn’t know that she knew where you worked, but I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

He was quiet for a moment, then resting his hands on my waist he looked me hard in the eyes.

“You didn’t run,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

“I promised, didn’t I?” I smiled.

A FEW DAYS HAD PASSED since the exams, and I was pretty sure that Nikki and the gang had been partying for every one of them. I’d managed to pick up a few extra shifts at Daisy’s with some of the other girls wanting to go home for the holidays. Christmas was only two weeks away and the extra money would pay for a bit of Christmas shopping. I’d also promised Nikki, after a fair amount of arm bending, that I’d go for a night out with the guys before they headed home. Walking home from my breakfast shift, I was feeling quite festive for once and looking forward to having someone to spend it with. By noon the cafe had become pretty quiet, so after treating me to a delicious jacket potato, which Mike assured me I didn’t need to pay for, as a customer had changed his mind about an order and it was going spare, sent me home half an hour early. Although we hadn’t actually had snow yet, the frost was brutal and the pavements were pretty treacherous, but I made it home without slipping and breaking anything. I collected my post at the entrance and hummed Christmas carols all the way up to my flat. Shutting the door behind me, I chucked the keys on my desk and decided to have a cup of tea before checking my bills and attacking my heater. Seven hours later, O’Connell walked in through my door to find me sat on my bed, the flat freezing cold and my full cup of stone-cold tea on the table beside me. I was shaking, having held the letter in my icy fingers for so long, but I couldn’t let it go.

“Shit!” he muttered, slamming the door behind him. He dumped his training bag and grabbed my face.

“What’s wrong, baby? What happened?” he asked urgently. I couldn’t let go of the letter, so I told him what was in it.

“Mrs. Wallis wrote to me,” I turned to look at him, “my old teacher.”

“I remember who she is, sunshine,” he encouraged.

“She said that her house was broken into. There was nothing in there with my address on it because she keeps that in her diary which she had with her.”

“But she thinks it might be Frank, doesn’t she, looking for evidence of where you’ve gone,” he guessed, seeing quickly where I was going with this. I nodded my head and swallowed.

“The thing is, she said that she filed away all of my university acceptance letters but forgot to destroy them when I left. If it was Frank, he could have my full name now and a shortlist of universities where I could be. How long do you think it would take him to find me with that?”

“So, change your name again and make it more difficult for him, but you’re not running.”

“I won’t run,” I whispered, “I promised you I wouldn’t. But changing my name will take time, and even then I don’t know if it will stop him from finding me.”

He gave me his most adorable grin as he offered me his solution. “Then use a different way to change your name and marry me.” The shock that had me clutching the letter, now made me drop it to the floor.

“Thank you, but I don’t want to get married just to change my name. It’s kind of you to offer, but I can’t,” I protested.

“Then don’t marry me to change your name. Marry me because there will never be another man in this world who loves you as much as I do. You’re my best friend, my missing piece, and the only person who can make my world amazing just by being in it. Marry me because I promise you a lifetime of love and laughter and happiness.” He carried on seamlessly, as though he’d thought about this and wanted to get it out before he forgot any of it.

“I want to be your husband, sunshine. I want to know that you are and always will be the other half of me for the rest of my life. I know that people will say we’re too young and that we have the rest of our lives, but people don’t know shit about who we are and what we’ve been through. Give me one good reason why you don’t think we should get married, and I’ll give you a million reasons why I know we should.”