Snap out of it Victoria, you’re imagining things. Caiden was living in London for the summer and would soon be returning home to America. Why would he be in my sleepy little town?

“You okay, Victoria?” Betty asked, as she took the bread, cheese, and cold meat from my shopping basket.

Betty had been working in this shop for as long as I could remember. When we first came here as a small child, Betty had owned the small, independent store, and she worked seven days a week all year round.

At some point, a big supermarket chain had noticed the prestigious piece of real estate in Windsor and had purchased the shop from Betty. I’d felt sorry for her at first. She’d cried when they took the sign down and changed the name, but a few weeks later she looked noticeably happier. She only had to work five days a week now and she once told me she preferred being bossed around than being the boss herself.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Betty,” I replied.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Betty said. “That’ll be £7.65.”

“I’m just tired from the journey home,” I said, as I slid my debit card in the chip and pin machine. Caiden was no ghost. A ghost wouldn’t have given me the best night of my life. I shuddered as I thought back to the moment he entered me; temporary pain quickly giving way to wave after wave of pleasure.

I hadn’t done much that first time other than just lay there. He had done all the work, but he was the expert after all. I made up for it the second time. And the time after that.

“I’m sure your father will be delighted to have you back home,” Betty said. “I always ask after you whenever he comes in here, and he tells me how well you’re doing at school. I hear you’re off to uni in a few months? Cambridge is it?”

I nodded. I hadn’t told my dad I’d been accepted by the University of Cambridge, but he’d already gone around telling everyone about it as if it were a done deal. Typical.

“Yes,” I replied, taking the food and slipping it into my backpack. I looked behind me to check that no-one was waiting to pay. “This might sound like an odd question, but did the last customer have an American accent?”

“I don’t know,” Betty replied. “He just put the condoms down and paid without saying a word. Come to think of it, his card wouldn’t work in the pin machine and I’d never heard of the bank on the card. I guess he could have been American. I know one thing about him though.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Betty motioned for me to lean in closer. “He’s got one hell of a nice arse and he’s just bought a big box of condoms. Why don’t you go out there and introduce yourself?”

“Betty!” I exclaimed, immediately blushing red like I was still the virgin I had been a week ago. “I’m not going to sleep with some strange guy.” Not again. Never again. “Especially not one covered in tattoos.”

Betty shrugged. “You’re going to university soon. You’re bound to do it sooner rather than later. I’ll tell you this, none of the boys at Cambridge—and that’s what they will be, boys—will get your blood rushing half as much as a man like that.”

How right she was. Caiden had done things to me that I didn’t think were possible and for the last week I had been trying and failing to replicate that experience myself. I hadn’t even come close.

“I won’t tell your father,” Betty added. “Just promise me you’ll try to live a little this summer, okay? It’s the last few months of freedom you’ll have in a while.”

“I promise. But I might stick to hanging out with friends and cooking, instead of… doing that other stuff.”

Betty smiled and shook her head. “If you make any of those pear muffins again, you be sure to stop by. Don’t be a stranger.”

I left the store and looked around for Caiden. I must be going mad. It was basically impossible for him to be here. He never left London and on the rare occasions I had spoken to him, he had made his disdain for the English countryside quite clear. Windsor wasn’t the countryside, but it was a relatively small town and to Caiden they were all the same. For him, it was London or nothing.

I couldn’t see Caiden. I sat down on a bench and tried to reassure myself that he wasn’t here and that I would never need to see him again.

In three months, I would be going to the University of Cambridge and would leave my old life far behind. No more all-girls school, no more uniform, and no more bumping into Caiden every time my friends insisted on going to a club. I would happily never go to London again if that’s what   it took to avoid Caiden.

I opened up my backpack and took out the letter that I had kept immaculately pressed between two cookbooks that I’d brought home with me from boarding school.

The envelope had the University of Cambridge logo in the corner, so there had been no mistaking what was inside. The official acceptance would come from UCAS soon after, but Cambridge insisted on writing to all applicants separately if they were accepted.

I looked at the letter again. The dean praised my application using generic language which he clearly sent to all applicants and then confirmed that I had been accepted for a place to read—not study, read—Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. PPE. The same course my dad had taken decades ago.

At the bottom of the letter, the dean had scribbled a few words next to his signature. “I loved your personal statement. You’ll be a great addition to our university.” That was a nice touch, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that he wrote that on every letter.

My personal statement had been one of the strongest parts of my application. My expected A-level grades were two A stars and three As. Good grades without a doubt, but fairly standard among Cambridge applicants.

My personal statement definitely had an emotional element to it. I wrote about my experience after my mum was nearly killed in a car crash. She’d spent months in intensive care and, even though she was now out of hospital, she had never been the same since. She’d get better one day, but that could be years away.

My dad had somehow arranged for a divorce the second she was deemed capable of giving consent, and I’d chosen to live with him. Not because I got on with my father better than my mother—I couldn’t stand him most of the time—but because my mother could barely look after herself. I didn’t want to inflict more pressure on her while she recovered.

I stood up and began the short walk home. My bag was heavy with the books and food, so I decided to run across the busy street by the corner shop instead of walking up to the crossing. A gap in the cars appeared, so I quickly darted across, my head constantly looking both ways.

I made it two-thirds of the way over when I saw Caiden again. Only from behind this time, but it was unmistakably him. I’d recognize the triangular shape of his back anywhere and the tattoo on the back of his neck was visible even from fifty feet away. He was walking in a different direction to me, but that was him.

A car horn blared and snapped me out of my trance. I was still standing in the middle of the street and a car had come to a screeching halt in front of me. Well done Victoria. You’re mother’s nearly killed in a car accident and yet you decide to stop in the middle of a busy street.

I waved a hand apologetically and skipped to the pavement. I turned to look at Caiden again. He’d turned around and was now walking straight towards me. He was looking down at his phone and hadn’t seen me.

I lowered my gaze and kept walking back towards my house. My hand gripped hold of the Cambridge acceptance letter and I tried to focus on the task at hand. My father had summoned me home for an urgent meeting, but I had news of my own to tell him. I didn’t want to go to Cambridge. I didn’t want to go to university at all. Not yet at least. Maybe not ever. That was going to be tough news for him to take.