Prologue

Prologue

I know, I know. You’re in a hurry. But you’re always in a hurry, and I really have to tell you this now. Please, just sit down.

I’m sure you’ve thought about it in the past; maybe you heard me mention the name in passing. Maybe you heard it on TV, or saw it on a newspaper while you were putting your old schoolbooks in the attic. Maybe you thought to ask. But then you didn’t, because you were in a hurry. It didn’t seem important. Maybe you heard the name again last Tuesday. Maybe it seemed more important then, but you still didn’t ask. But before I tell you, I want you to understand something. I want you to understand that, in the end, I realised it was never about him. It was never about either of them, really. It was never about the girl who wore her hair in braids and met him on the park on Saturday afternoons, and it was never about what I stole on the night he wore his new jeans. It was never about the things I said in his conservatory while the July rain threatened to crash through the glass and fill the spaces between my words, or the white suburban corners where I found myself lost and found at all the right times. In the end, I knew what it meant. And it meant so much less than it could have done. 

I just need you to understand that.

Do you understand that? Okay. Good. So it started on a Thursday.