Our Infinite Fates

DR CHIANG AGREED TO see me the next evening, out of hours.

Arden drove me into Abergavenny and sat in the deserted waiting room while I talked to my therapist. The appointment was the longest we’d spent apart since he’d agreed to let me live, but if he was worried about me sharing our darkest secrets with a third party, he didn’t show it – just gave me a tight smile as I entered the office without him.

The space was large and neat, lined with mahogany bookcases and painted a soothing cream colour. Dr Chiang was a short, round woman in her forties, who had a particular fondness for model trains – her desk was lined with miniatures. She wore floral dresses and woolly tights, and had big gold-rimmed glasses that made her look like an owl. She was badly allergic to dust, and sneezed almost constantly. At the familiar, warming sight of her, I couldn’t remember why on earth I’d stopped coming in the first place. She rushed around the desk towards me.

‘Oh, Branwen,’ she said, in her soft Bangor accent, and I all but collapsed into her.