When I wake again, the overhead hum of the fluorescent tubes is the first thing I hear. The room is too bright and I roll over to bury my face in the pillow, but the sheets catch the cannula that is taped to the back of my hand and I let out a small sound.

‘Are you OK?’

Sam is still here and I wonder as I look at his wrinkled clothes, the shadow around his chin, when he last went home.

‘I’m still alive?’ It’s more a question than a statement.

‘You’re going to be fine, Jenna,’ Sam says and I scan his face, looking for the tell-tale way he sometimes screws his eyes up if he’s not being entirely truthful – of course your bum doesn’t look big – but I can’t see any sign of a lie.

I give a small shake of my head. ‘But…’

‘You have a bacterial infection. If you hadn’t got here when you did… ’ He squeezes my hand. ‘Dr Kapur is pleased with the way you’re responding to treatment. He’ll tell you himself when he does his rounds. Trust me,’ he says, and I do. I’m not feeling quite as hot as I was. My muscles aren’t as achy.

He sloshes water into a glass and cradles my head as I sip.

‘I’ll call your parents; they’ve nipped home for a shower and a change of clothes.’

‘You don’t have to stay,’ I say when I have drained the glass.

‘But I want to. Jen. I nearly lost you. Again.’

My throat swells and eyes sting. ‘I’m sorry. For everything. I thought I was doing the right thing. After I lost the baby I felt I’d really let you down.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. You could just as easily blame the doctor you saw after we had flu who told you your lack of energy and dizziness was a normal symptom of the first trimester. He couldn’t envisage what was to come and he was a doctor. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Jen.’

‘I couldn’t bear to look at myself. I didn’t know how you could stand to look at me.’

‘I love you,’ Sam says. The simple truth.

I know I have to tell Sam about me and Nathan. But it’s not the right time. Not here. Not now.

‘I love you too, Sam.’ And at this moment it’s the only truth that matters.

He strokes my arm with his thumb. ‘I’d best make some phone calls in a minute. Everyone has been worried about you.’

‘Everyone?’

‘My mum’s been frantic.’

‘Has she? I thought she’d never forgive me after Harry going missing.’

‘You might have some making up to do. But not for Harry going missing. She knows that wasn’t your fault.’

‘What for then?’ I can’t think of what else I might have done.

‘Because she was so relieved Harry was OK she caved and adopted that stray dog he kept wittering on about. Lavender. Mum is walking her twice a day. Grumbles, but I think she loves it really. She met a widower on the common yesterday with a boxer dog called Johnson. They’re meeting again. He’s got a son around Harry’s age who is mad keen on Star Wars Lego too. Might be the start of something?’

Mr Harvey from the vet’s!

‘Rachel will be here later too.’ Sam notices the look of surprise on my face. ‘She’s resigned, you know. I think her exact words to Linda were “go fuck yourself”.’

Sam fiddles with his phone before placing it on my bedside cabinet. ‘Kiss Me’ streams from the speaker and, as Ed Sheehan sings, Sam swings his legs onto the bed and I shuffle towards the wall making space, and we lie together, his arm around my shoulders, my head on his chest, the rise and fall. I’ve missed this so much. It isn’t until the song is over that Sam speaks.

‘I was so scared when I got your phone call, Jen. I didn’t know what was going on and the thought I might never see you again terrified me. This isn’t the most romantic of settings. Again.’ His hand reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring box. ‘But, marry me?’ He flicks open the lid and there it is. His grandmother’s ring, and my throat constricts.

‘I can’t pass it on.’

‘Pass what on?’

‘The ring.’ I sniff hard. ‘You said your grandma wanted to keep the tradition going. I’ll never have a granddaughter to pass it on to.’

Sam pulls his arm from underneath me and rolls onto his side and stares deep into my eyes. ‘Jen, none of us know what’s going to happen. How long we’ve got.’ He brushes a tear from my cheek with his thumb.’ We might decide we want children, to adopt, to foster; we might not. But if you don’t take this ring, it’s not going anywhere. I love you. Only you.’

There’s a flutter in my chest and I wait to see if the feelings I thought I once had for Nathan resurface, but there’s nothing, except a burning love for Sam that eclipses my doubts. I know that no matter what the future holds, he will be there by my side, and I’m determined to make the most of every single second I have left.

‘Yes. I’ll marry you,’ I say, my voice strong and certain, and Sam bends his neck so our foreheads touch.

And we stay that way until a trolley clatters into the room and Sam is offered a drink and a newspaper. He digs some change out of his pocket and buys two cups of tea.

‘Not exactly champagne but do you want a strawberry to go with that?’ He rolls open the drawer of my bedside cabinet and pulls out a punnet of fruit.

‘Your mum brought them in. She said they are your new favourite thing?’

My stomach turns at the thought of the taste, the texture.

‘Nope. Still hate them.’ I am so relieved.

Callie’s gone and there’s me. Just me.

And Sam.

Our own little family of two.