Sitting in the cafe where they'd agreed to meet, she checks her watch and sees the bruise around her wrist. He's late. If he's not here by ten past, she'll leave. She lifts her coffee to her lips and notices her hand is trembling. Relax, she tells herself, glancing around at friendly faces. He can't do anything here.

When he walks in, he's smiling the smile that tricked her all those years ago, and for just a split second she's reminded of the man she married.

As he sits, she sees he's chewing gum. So he's tense; he'd chew gum after the beatings. 'You wind me up,' he'd say as she checked to see if he'd knocked out any teeth. 'You push me to it.'

'I'm sorry,' he says now, not meeting her eye. 'I'm sorry about it all. I was angry and I took it out on you.'

'But it's not the first time.'

'I lost my job,' he spits. 'I've been stressed out. How do you think that made me feel?'

She clenches her jaw. 'I don't care,' she says. 'I can't care.'

'But I love you.'

She wants to lift off her jumper to show him the patches of bruises. 'This isn't love,' she wants to scream. 'How can it be?'

Though she doesn't, of course. Instead she stands, catching sight of the taxi she'd ordered pulling up outside.

He grips her wrist. 'I can change. Let me try.'

'No, you can't,' she says, the control in her hands for once. 'It's too late.'

And with that she leaves. She may not know where she's going, but anywhere is better than where she's been.

It's taken time to get this far, but, as her father always said, 'Better to be late than to be dead on time.'