I slipped a couple of bracelets on my wrist and checked my reflection in the mirror before heading outside. Work on the site had stopped as the builders were having their morning tea break. Mum was standing beside the empty cement mixer talking to Des, our electrician. She was nearly forty but could easily have passed for younger in her cream top and denims, and with straight blonde hair like mine that rested just above her shoulders. I had a feeling from the way he’d been hanging around lately that Des fancied my mum, but there was no way that was going to happen. She hadn’t so much as looked at another man since my dad died. The sooner Des realized that and stopped trying to flirt with her the better. As I walked towards them, avoiding the muddy areas and the builders’ mess, I caught some of their conversation.

‘Did you get your hair done, Rachel?’ said Des.

‘Just a trim,’ said Mum. ‘Can’t believe you noticed.’

How creepy, I thought. Poor Mum, she was way too polite for her own good.

‘It’s very nice… very… shiny,’ said Des with an elaborate hand movement that I presumed was supposed to convey shine. Then he went slightly red and started to mumble something under his breath. Unable to watch his cringeworthy antics any longer, I turned and headed for the road, saying I was just going to get something from the shop. We were running low on bread, but I was really just hoping to see Nick again.

As I wandered towards the village, I thought about how it can take seconds to create an obsession, and years to get over it. Within minutes of meeting Nick I’d allowed myself to slip into that familiarly dangerous territory. That place where you think about a person constantly, where you rehearse future conversations in your head, where you plan your day around the blissful possibility of bumping into them. I’d only been in love once before. It had ended when I’d discovered my now ex-boyfriend, Cian, wrapped round my former best friend.