She feels guilty about a lot of things that aren't really her fault. The way her cigarette ash is always litter even though she butts out all her stubs in the garbage bin. Or how she will never be able to pronounce 'bugger' properly due to the astringent qualities of her American accent; even though she has lived in Australia for years, her mouth still refuses to form the syllables correctly. She feels a pang when she can't quite remember someone's name; never good with first and last but faces, she can pick a face and associate within seconds.

However, at the moment, she doesn't feel very guilty about the chaos of the room behind her: smashed plastic of her phone, broken picture frames, ripped clothes, glass fragments. Instead she sits, Indian-style, on the peeling wood of her balcony, flicking ash from her millionth cigarette and watching the sun disappear. In that air of absolute Zen she is resolute: she will not be guilty about making the right choice, she will not regret what she is doing but she might eventually feel bad about destroying the intertwining elements of a man from her recent past. Maybe tomorrow or next week or in six months she will want to remember the passion he instilled the objects she has now reduced to litter.

For now, it is daylight savings and she is all bare legs and green cotton underwear, no goosebumps and a smoothly subtle warmth that spreads from the night to her limbs. Though really, that's probably just the first gin and tonic of the season working its way into her eager bloodstream. It feels a little bit like freedom but at the same time she knows within each sip of melted ice and swirling liquor, there is a gasp of self-loathing.

She feels overwhelmingly guilty about that.