There were fairy-lights wrapped around her bed frame. Well they weren’t fairy-lights really. They were last year’s Christmas tree lights but they created the desired glow: circles of shadow and sparkle on the swirling lilac walls.

Her pillows were crimson, blood-red and stacked all neatly against the scratched pine of her wardrobe. Her scented candles burned hypnotically on the book-case, the drawers, the fish tank.

“It isn’t that I can’t do this anymore,” she announced. Her neatly cut and polished nails dug into her skirt, picking at the rough fabric. “It’s that I don’t want to.”

I just nodded, and let the fragrance of her tone wash over me like the smell of the candles. Her pearl-pink feet massaged a dark stain on the carpet, flipped the rug back over it when she couldn’t take the roughness any longer.

“I’m strong, James,” she insisted. “But our time’s up.”

Another nod. The lights were going blurry as I stared at them…like life-force leaving an eye.

“We need to tell them that we did it.”