It may not be a great thing to use as a yardstick for how much he cares about her, but what else does she have to go on? She wants desperately to know where things stand between them, where they are headed, but she is too scared to ask. What if asking sends him running in the opposite direction?

And so she keeps track of the kisses on his messages until it almost drives her fucking insane. She longs for consistency and he is far, far from consistent – some days there is one kiss, others three, some days there are none at all. It’s meaningless, she knows, but she can’t help but read too much into it – how can three kisses not mean more than one? They must, right? Or has she got it the wrong way round – does a single kiss in fact mean more than a whole of string of them? Is that more sincere?

Eventually, she decides it must mean more when he sends just one. After all, they are seeing each other regularly, he sends her ‘Goodnight x’ messages before she falls asleep and, well, she just has a good feeling about things. After all, it’s been a while since anyone sent her any kisses at all.

The good feeling lasts until they are out together in a bar one night. It lasts until he goes to the bathroom and leaves her alone with his phone.

She has never been great at resisting temptation and she is even worse at not playing with fire. And so yes, she does look at his messages, and yes, immediately she wishes she hadn’t. Because it it turns out he doesn’t always communicate his affection with kisses. Sometimes he communicates it with pictures of his dick. And he has never, ever sent her one of those.