It was 4 months post him. Your first love, the love of your life, Simon Riley. Everything hurt. He was so perfect. A beautiful smile, messy dark blonde hair, and wide innocent brown eyes. You were one and others first … everything.

It was a cliché, being 20 and breaking up with your boyfriend of 3 years. Saying he’s ’the love of your life’ despite life only beginning. But truly no man will ever compare. He was equally as broken after breaking up with you. After all he had even lived in your flat for the last 2 years.

It was nobody’s fault. There were no bitter feelings between the two of you, but there was an acidic burn within your stomach every night. Whenever someone mentioned him.

The relationship ended because you both had severe trauma, his being from his father. The man who tormented him his entire life, beat him. As a child, he would wake up to a wet bed. Having had a nightmare.

So you mutually agreed to end things. After all of the intimacy and secrets shared. You had shown him the skin you hated, the body you forever wanted to conceal. But there were always things you could never tell each other.