Charity Shop

I found the jumper I knitted him in the window of a charity shop. £4.

It took me three months. A chunky, slightly crooked, deep green thing with sleeves that never matched. I'm not a knitter. I watched forty YouTube tutorials. I cried at a dropped stitch. I gave it to him on his birthday, wrapped in newspaper, and he wore it for a week straight. "It's the best thing anyone's ever made me," he said.

His name was Ollie. We were together fourteen months. He ended it in April, over text, which I've never forgiven.

Today I was walking past the Oxfam on the high street. And there, on a mannequin, a green jumper. Wonky left sleeve. I stopped dead.

I went in. Took it off the mannequin with shaking hands. Checked the label inside. Sewn, in my own messy thread: "Made by E. for O."

He'd donated it.

I stood there, holding it like a wounded animal. A volunteer, a kind older woman with reading glasses, wandered over. "Lovely, isn't it? Handmade. A young man dropped it off in May."

"Did he say why?" I asked.

She smiled sadly. "He didn't. But he comes in every Saturday. Asks if it's still here."

My stomach dropped. "Every Saturday?"

"Every week since. Just checks it hasn't sold."

I bought it. £4.

I walked home wearing it, sleeves hanging past my hands.

He gave it away, but couldn't let anyone else take it.