Clapping my hand over my mouth I hold myself perfectly still, ears straining for the sound of movement inside. There’s nothing to hear except faint laughter from the flat above, the low hum of their TV, and I think about running upstairs but they’ve only just moved in and I haven’t met them yet, besides I can’t hear any noise coming from inside my flat.

Stretching out my arm, my fingertips lightly press on the door, and ever so gently I push. The hinges squeak and I drop my hand. Random images rush at me. A figure hiding behind the door; under my bed; in my wardrobe. I can’t bring myself to go inside. Stepping backwards I press my spine against the wall half-expecting someone to charge towards me. I don’t take my eyes off the door as I retreat downstairs, and once I am outside I sink to the kerb, dropping my head between my knees, waiting for the feeling of weightlessness to pass. When it does and I feel able to speak, I pull my mobile out of my bag. There’s a text from Nathan and my breath stalls in my lungs as I read

A sense of unease slithers in the pit of my stomach as again I feel like I am being watched, and I look over both shoulders before I start to punch out numbers on my phone. ‘Nine.’ ‘Nine’. I hesitate, my finger hovering over the keypad. The flowers might prove Nathan has been here but it doesn’t necessarily mean he has been in my flat. That anyone has been in my flat. Did I lock my door when I left? Did I close it even? Sifting through my clouded mind doubt swallows me whole. I can’t be sure. Think, Jenna.

Closing my eyes I picture my keys in my hand and I have a really strong feeling I pulled the door closed behind me. ‘We don’t go on feelings, Miss McCauley.’ The way I’d been dismissed at the station still smarts and I don’t want to call the police unless I’m sure someone has broken into the flat, and I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all. What now?

* * *

I’m still sitting on the kerb when Sam arrives, my teeth chattering, but I don’t feel cold. He screeches to a halt on the double yellows.

‘Jen.’ Slamming his car door he reaches me in three strides, and as I stand I wobble, and he pulls me to his chest. The wool from his jumper is itchy against my cheek but I don’t pull away.

‘Are the police upstairs?’ he asks.

‘I haven’t called them.’

‘Why not? Holding my upper arms he steps back so he can scrutinise my face and I hope he doesn’t see the guilt in my eyes and guess that I’ve slept with someone else.

‘I’m not sure if I shut the door when I left. I had a lot on my mind.’ I eventually confess. ‘It’s my biopsy tomorrow. I’m not thinking straight. I don’t want to waste police time.’ I chew my bottom lip not wanting to tell him I’d visited the police station days before and am worried they won’t believe me again. The things I keep hidden are beginning to outbalance the truths I tell – the scales are tipping, weighted with deceit.

He glances up at the window of the flat. ‘I’ll go and check. You wait here.’

Sam disappears through the communal door and it takes seconds for me to follow, tiptoeing behind him, but as he reaches the top of the stairs I stage whisper: ‘Sam!’

He turns.

‘Perhaps we should call the police. There could be someone inside.’

Emotions slide across his face. ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you,’ he says and he steps through the door before I can reply it’s him I’m worried about, not me.

A gasp escapes me as I follow Sam through my door. Glancing to my right I can see the lounge is in disarray. Books pulled from the shelves, cushions on the floor.

‘Go and wait outside,’ his voice is tense, but although I don’t follow him as he pads down the hallway, I can’t step away either. My stomach is a tight, hard, knot and my feet are rooted to the floor. Sam disappears into each room before returning to me.

‘There’s no one here but we need to call the police.’

Pushing past him I rush into the bedroom. ‘Don’t touch anything, Jenna,’ he cries but it’s too late. Stepping over drawers that have been pulled from the chest, contents spilled like paint, I drop to my knees in front of the open doors of my wardrobe and pick up the carved wooden box, upended and empty.

‘Jenna?’

I hear Sam but I don’t speak. I can’t speak. I frantically rifle through the mess, locating everything that’s lost, placing the items, one by one, back into the box but they’re all sullied now. A stranger has touched them, and I swallow the acid that has risen in my throat. There’s the pair of lemon newborn baby socks, the cream floppy rabbit with ears that crinkle, the tiny Babygro imprinted with a curled and sleeping hedgehog. At first I can’t find it, the scan picture, and although the image is scorched onto my heart panic wells until my fingers brush against the shiny paper and I pick up the print of the life that never got to live.

‘You kept everything?’ Sam murmurs and I feel a punch of raw emotion, deep in my stomach, and I fold into myself, my head on my knees.

All the things we’ve never properly talked about hang in the air like mist. I want to tell him how sorry I am that I lost our baby when my heart gave up trying but my apologies are stuck in my throat, along with my tears and my shame. Sam holds me as I rock, his thumb rhythmically stroking the back of my neck, and my stain of regret spreads.

* * *

It felt a little awkward, fetching Sam blankets and a pillow as though he is a guest. As though this was never his home, but I’m grateful to not be alone tonight. I lie in bed listening to the rain pitter-patter against the window. Staring so long at the street lamp outside the orange blurs and blends into the charcoal sky. I close my eyes. It’s my six-month check-up tomorrow and I need to get some rest.

The toilet chain flushes and water whooshes through the pipes under the floorboard. The creaking tread of Sam’s footsteps as he pads down the hallway are comforting, but instead of coming into the bedroom and spooning behind me, the lounge door creaks open and the sofa springs squeak as he lies down.

He doesn’t settle. The sofa creaks and groans under his weight and I wonder whether he’ll come and get into bed with me. I wonder whether I want him to.

Since the break-in, anxiety has pulsed through me in short, sharp bursts. I haven’t called the police. Despite the mess, my paperwork strewn everywhere, my bills, my sketch books, nothing has been taken, and I can’t face trying to explain everything, given that it’s all so muddled in my head. Sam had been silent as he picked up the photos of Callie that had been pulled from the kitchen walls as he helped me tidy up, but I had seen the look of disbelief on his face as he’d examined the torn pieces of my mind map. I’d noticed the slight shake of his head as he studied my random thoughts. Would he still think it’s all in my head if I hadn’t rushed over to the fridge when we walked into the kitchen and stood in front of the door so he couldn’t see what I saw? The magnetic letters had been rearranged into two words: ‘Stop Digging’.