I stare at the open Leary Constructions folder on my desk as I sit behind it once more. My sadness and confusion quickly transmutes into anger as I close the project folder and drop it inanely onto the floor behind me. I don’t then take the opportunity to distract myself with work. Instead I decide to stay in a foul mood for the entire afternoon, grumbling under my breath about my fiancé while the song I Don’t Like Mondays plays on a loop in my head.

The more that I think-over our last conversation, the angrier I become with Logan. Any normal person might spot this pattern and put a stop it it, but, of course, I don’t. If he knows about the shooting then surely he could realise that I haven’t had the best walk down memory lane today? Surely he could show a little compassion rather than animosity? I ask myself over and over what the hell is going on, but the hours of questioning leave me with nothing but a headache.

Sometime after four PM, I realise that the pain in my head is also partly caused by hunger; I haven’t eaten since breakfast, all of which I then threw up. In the kitchenette of Pierson House I commit workplace treason. I find and wolf down a large raspberry muffin that does not belong to me. My reason for doing so — that I’m hungry, and that being caught couldn’t possibly make this day any worse — is testament to how unlike myself I’m feeling, and acting. I’ll replace it tomorrow, I think, trying to regain my usual conscience.

Less than an hour later Amélie appears at my desk and before I can start defending my muffin-stealing antics, she orders me to go home and rest so that I might perform a little more successfully tomorrow. It’s a fair critique; I haven’t written a single sentence all day.

“I’ll be better tomorrow,” I promise her. I suddenly remember that I promised myself the same thing last Friday. I told myself that I would take the weekend to contain my excitement about our engagement, and that I’d come to work today and concentrate harder. How ironic, I think, that I’ve spent the entire afternoon feeling totally unfocussed, my thoughts consumed with Logan once more, though for entirely different reasons. I’d prefer Friday’s lovestruck mindset over my current frame of mind, but I just can’t find that bubble of ours right now.

My thoughts a messy tangle, I say goodbye to Margaret and Layla, before me, my bag, and my big bouquet of flowers step out of the building only to find Logan’s black BMW parked right in front of the doors.

He’s back? I step towards the passenger door, looking through the window, where there are papers spread over every surface in an apparent attempt at turning the space into a temporary office. Or has he been here all this time, I wonder.

He’s talking to someone on his mobile, probably someone on-site in Marseille, trying to make up for his wasted trip. He looks more like himself than he did inside earlier, I even see a glimmer of those dimples, and his demeanour certainly seems a lot calmer and relaxed. Until he catches sight of me watching him, that is. He does a double take before annoyance flickers in his eyes once more. I was beginning to enjoy my perving, but now it’s ruined. My own eyes narrow immediately, and a growl escapes me where I stand. Why is he being like this? What have I missed, I ask again. I hate seeing him respond to me like that, and what’s more, I hate not knowing why.

Logan leans across the car to open the passenger door for me to get in. He’s showing much less enthusiasm than I’m used to from him, and I find it disconcerting. I can’t keep Amber’s comment from floating through my head — it’s all down hill from here, she said.

Quit the dramatics, Gemima. Stop thinking and just go home. Yes, excellent idea.

I give Logan a there’s-no-way-I’m-driving-with-you kind of look, before walking haughtily to my own car, getting in, and speeding off erratically, my driving a match for my mood.

The closer that I get to my home the sicker my stomach feels and I begin to suspect that that muffin I stole might not have been as fresh as it looked. However, as I reenter the underground garage a shudder runs through me and I realise that it’s the prospect of walking only metres from where my neighbour died that has my tummy churning. I feel hypersensitive as I park, just waiting in dread for those eerie, cold feelings to take ahold of me again. Mercifully, they don’t, and I suddenly discern that somewhere over the course of the afternoon, whilst being mentally at war with Logan, those awful feelings have left me. That’s a silver-lining, I think mockingly.

Logan follows me the entire way to the complex, and when I turn to drive into the garage he continues on, to park on the road. I find him waiting at the top of the stairwell (no elevator for me, thank you very much) by which point my need to throw up again is overbearing. Without saying a word to him, I walk hastily along the path, trying my best to ignore the teeming number of people who are in and around the house opposite mine. Just don’t look, I tell myself. And I should especially avoid staring at the bloodstained concrete, I think, spying it in my peripheral vision. I feel my body wanting to retch, but I suppress the urge, and hurry off the path to my front door.

A few moments later I empty what little contents I have in my stomach into the toilet bowl.

“Is that the first time you’ve thrown up today?” Logan asks me, his voice coming from somewhere behind me.

Is that the first thing you’re going to say to me, I think, but don’t say out loud. “No,” I confess, somehow managing to feel hot, flushed, cold, and shivery all at the same time. He doesn’t say anything else for the remainder of the time I’m crouched on the floor, and I assume that he’s gathering his words together and his explanation will be imminent. Any second now.

When I eventually get to my feet and move over to the sink, Logan speaks from his seat on the edge of the bathtub, but they’re not the words that I need or expect to hear.

“Do you want me to pack you a bag?”

I look at him in the mirror above the sink. “Am I going somewhere?”

“To the apartment.”

I turn slowly around, keeping myself as coolheaded as I possibly can. “Why on earth would I want to spend my evening at yours with you after the way you’ve behaved today? Behaviour that still hasn’t been explained, might I add.”

He ignores my question and says simply, “It’s our apartment, not mine, and I’m not leaving you alone.”

I refrain from rolling my eyes. Does the think the gunman is still at large? “I can go to my mom’s,” I tell him.

“OK, we’ll go there…but I’m not leaving you, period,” he says, oh-so-annoyingly. Then he holds up something in his hand — it’s my mobile phone; he must’ve found it while I was vomiting. He throws it across to me and it lights up when I catch it. There’s a message on my home screen telling me that I have fifty-four missed calls from him.

“Fifty-four?” I shriek. I look up at him in shock. “Have you mustered the ability to explain why you’ve acted so OTT today?”

“I’ve already told you that,” he says.

No, he didn’t! Did he? I try to recall everything that he said to me earlier, and vaguely wonder if I’ve spent the whole afternoon grumbling for no reason, but I haven’t. I’m sure he never explained himself.

“Are you going to apologise for not calling me?” he asks quietly.

My mouth almost hits the floor. Is he fucking serious? The expression on his face tells that me that he is. Holding up my phone, I tell him, “I told you in my last message that I would call you at lunchtime, which I was about to do when you showed up. I purposefully didn’t call you earlier because I was extremely preoccupied this morning and I didn’t want to interrupt your morning on site, which is where I thought you were,” by the time I finish talking my voice is loud and angry.