The day he gave me the locket, I knew I was something special to him.

It was the end of the magical summer, one of those days where the cool breeze gave you goosebumps, while the sun still warmed your delicate skin. The leaves were beginning to turn brown and flutter gently to the cool ground when they got too heavy for the tree to clutch onto. We were walking down by the river – him in his charcoal coloured coat, and me in my midnight-blue dress. We’d just escaped from the theatre, and the sun was slowly setting.

I gazed at him; he was squinting from the sun in his eyes. He turned to me.

“I want to give you something.” He caressed my cheek, and I shivered. From inside his coat he removed a small, black box. Opened it.

Sitting on the velvet inside was a locket. It was beautiful, large on a delicate silver chain. Carefully embossed with flowers around the edge – it looked precious, and expensive. I longed to touch it, but didn’t dare; it had a mystical quality about it, and I didn’t want to break the spell. It caught the sunlight and shone like a star, the silver too bright to be looked at directly. He took it in his hands and clasped it round my neck. It rested heavily between my breasts and seemed to restrict my breathing, weighing down on my lungs. I gasped and looked, helpless into his eyes.

“It was my mother’s, and her mother’s before that. And before that, her mother’s. It dates from the Victorian era.” He spoke quietly, tenderly even. “Never take it off.” He commanded, looking intensely back into my eyes.

I promised I would never do so, while drowning in his love. I couldn’t breathe. We kissed, and I never knew whether it was the locket or him that made my heart heavy and my head weary. We pulled away and suddenly I wanted to cry, or scream. I wanted the whole world to see him and me, and accept us for what we were: imperfectly perfect. We were both flawed, but maybe, together, we could overcome everything and everyone. Maybe we could beat our demons.

The locket was cold against my skin, it never seemed to warm to me. And even now, when I reach down and touch it for security, it’s still cold.