He always used to call me Samantha, even though I hated it.

As a little girl I had been a "Sami", as an adult I had become a "Sam" and to the army I had been "Nicholls" but I had never been Samantha to anyone but Dylan. Recently he had reluctantly started to call me Sam too; well when he wasn't avoiding saying my name completely. I guessed this was mostly in deference to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people we knew these days hadn't been aware of our prior connection and he definitely didn't want to draw attention to that. So whilst I had spent most of our history playfully telling him off for inventing Samantha, I was now missing the goosebumps I got when he said her name out loud.

God, it felt like I'd spent half my life pretending Samantha Keogh didn't even exist and I was now spending the other half wishing she still did.

Sometimes being Sam Nicholls was a damn lonely place to be.

Since the day of the fire I had caught our colleagues staring at Dylan and I whenever our paths crossed. From the comments Zoe and Linda had made I could tell they were all trying to figure out how we had ever managed to stop bickering for long enough to get together, let alone how we managed to co-exist in a marriage.

Truth is Dylan and I had always driven each other to complete distraction with our constant game of one-upmanship and our ability to press each other's buttons without even trying. To outsiders it may have seemed like we hated each other, however I knew he only tested me to push me as far as he thought I could go. Sometimes all the studying and research had seemed like a mountain I wasn't capable of climbing, but he had always believed in my potential. His faith had sustained me through the horrors of Afghanistan, but in finally achieving my dreams of becoming an army medic I had lost the only person I had ever loved.

Still I came back to him though. It had been more design than accident that I had ended up working right beside him and if he wasn't so detached he would have realised why by now. Even though I functioned perfectly well without him he had always been the thing my whole life focused around. There was just something about him that kept bringing me back, drawing me in and holding me there – I was the earth to his sun, constantly orbiting him and stuck in a gravitational pull I just couldn't break.

Nor would I ever want it to, because despite our extreme differences I recognised similarities too. I had heard people commenting on Dylan's aloofness and his stand-offish behaviour – some had suggested he may even be autistic, but I knew he just found it difficult to read them and he struggled to make connections with anyone other than his beloved dog. I know I am more outgoing and positive than him, but it's not like I have any real friends either. People bemuse me because I don't understand them nor do I feel the need to invest in their affections. In fact the only person I have ever really connected with was Dylan and I knew I was the only person in his life who he didn't feel completely isolated from.

Okay, intimate friendship it was not but there was a depth there that I know neither of us has had with another person, which definitely counts for something. Admittedly I might always be second best in his life to Dervla, but I adore that dog too. He would never be able to connect with Zoe the same way that much is a certainty, because she will never understand the walls he puts up or how his head works.

I know Dylan still loves me the best way he can and I know that for both our sanities one day I will have to walk away. But right now I am happy just to orbit, occasionally getting a glimpse of the great man I fell for all those years ago and just wishing he would notice me in return.

Loving someone who has never said "I love you" back was never going to be easy. That doesn't mean I don't want to stay.

Orbiting.