There is a difference between being seen and being known. Leo had seen me from the first moment, but knowing came later. Knowing came when I told him about the street corner, the strangers, the cold November rain. He had held me then, called me brave, and in the days that followed I felt something shift inside me. Something terrifying and tender and completely new. I was in love with Leo Voss. And I had not told him.

The realisation hit me on a Tuesday afternoon, standing in my clean, empty apartment with signed divorce papers on the counter and a cup of cold coffee in my hand. The marriage was over. The cage was open. I was free. And the first thing I wanted to do with that freedom was run to Schöneberg and tell a man I had only known for weeks that he had become the centre of my entire fucking universe.