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I have just agreed to marry another man. I have just been hit with the full force of my attraction to this man, just been confronted by feelings I have been trying to suppress.

I know I cannot have them both. I feel torn in so many directions I fear I will tear apart and scatter in fragments.

He smiles, sad and sweet, and says, ‘I understand, Elena.’

It is almost sunset time, and together we sit in the usual spot. I hold my broken arm close in my lap, the pain of the physical injury seeming to echo the one in my heart. I think about all the conversations we’ve had here, all the magical times we have shared. I think about my baby. I think about Harry, and the tragedy that has derailed him.

I think about far-off places I will never see, and I think about the life I can lead, and the happiness that might still be mine one day. About Alex leaving, as I know he will do, sometime soon.

I think about everything and nothing, and for the first time since the earthquake I feel truly alone.

‘Penny for them?’ he says, a gentle hand on my shoulder.

‘Not worth it.’ I lean my head to one side so my cheek rests on his fingers, then look at him from swollen eyes. ‘You don’t happen to have a bottle of tequila secreted about your person, do you?’

‘Sadly not … though I’m sure I can find some for you later if you need it. How do you feel?’

‘I can’t answer that question,’ I reply. ‘Because I don’t really know. I feel everything and nothing, all at the same time. This was all a big surprise. I wasn’t planning on marrying Harry, you know that. And I didn’t think he was planning on marrying me. But that night, when he left to go and explore, he was going off to buy this ring – so I suppose he was. And I feel … guilty about that.’

‘Guilty?’ he asks. ‘Why guilty?’

‘Well, maybe if he’d stayed where he was – where we were – he wouldn’t have been crushed. Maybe he would have been with us, below ground, and maybe he wouldn’t have been as badly injured. Maybe it was only because he was off looking for a ring to give me that he ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Okay. But you know that’s silly, right? Because maybe he’d have died. Maybe he would have been injured even more severely. Maybe he wouldn’t have come out of it at all. We nearly didn’t.’

‘I know. At least the rational part of me does. But I can’t quite shake it, the feeling that it’s because of this bloody ring that he ended up disabled …’

‘Is that,’ he says carefully, ‘a good enough reason to marry him? To commit to spending the rest of your life with him?’

‘I don’t know. Probably not. But it was certainly a good enough reason not to humiliate him in front of his family and on camera. I couldn’t do that to him. And maybe we’ll be okay. Maybe we’ll be happy. We were once. Before …’

I trail off, and look out at the city. There is a mild breeze, and a strand of hair breaks loose from my ponytail, floating in front of my face like a feather.

‘Before what?’ he prompts, reaching out to touch my hand. I twine my fingers into his, and turn back to face him. My eyes are stinging, and my smile dies halfway.

‘I think you know, Alex. I think we both do. We’ve tried to ignore it, to stay friends, to pretend we don’t feel more than that. But … it’s not quite working. Not for me at least. Am I mad? Are you wondering what the hell I’m talking about?’

‘Possibly you are mad, yes. But I do know what you’re talking about. I feel it too. I haven’t said anything because it seemed wrong. Unfair to discuss such things when Harry was in the state he is in. But here we are … discussing it. Do you love him?’

‘That’s a big question. I do love him, in a way. And I feel like I owe him, and that I just can’t abandon him now … what would that say about me, as a person? To leave him when he’s at his absolute lowest? I don’t think I could live with myself if I did that. I don’t think I could just move on from that, and be happy somewhere else. With someone else.’

There is a hush around us, the nurses who were on their break heading back inside, the noise of the city in a temporary lull.

‘I don’t want you to give up your future without really thinking about it,’ he says. ‘Not just about … us, whatever we are. But about what you want from life.’

‘I know. I could say the same to you, Alex. You need to heal as well, and I’m not talking about broken bones or cuts. I’m talking about Anna, and the way you live your life. I don’t know what “us” is either – maybe it’s just as simple as us having survived a terrible ordeal together. Maybe it’s more … or maybe it could have been more, in a different life. But we live in this one, and maybe that’s the answer for both of us – to just live. To move on.’

He does not answer, but he slips an arm around my shoulder, and I lean against him.

‘I knew you were trouble the moment I met you,’ he says, kissing the top of my head. ‘You turn my life upside down—’

‘That was an earthquake, not me!’

‘You turn my life upside down, and then tell me to sort my life out?’

‘I know,’ I reply, laughing despite everything. ‘The nerve of the woman … but please, do sort your life out. You deserve better. You deserve to be out in the world. You deserve love and happiness and all those things you seem to have shut yourself off from.’

‘You may be right, but I’m not sure I should be accepting life coaching from someone who just agreed to marry a man she doesn’t love …’