‘Stevie Barnes and Rob Harris?’ Jemma repeated their names a couple of times. ‘Oh yes! I’m not sure about Rob but, if I’m on the right person, Stevie lives a couple of streets down from ours and he has a gorgeous Border Collie. How come you lost touch?’

‘Stupid stuff. My fault. I didn’t rate Stevie’s fiancée but I wasn’t mature enough to keep my opinions to myself.’

Stevie and Rob had been best mates since primary school but they’d never made me feel like the outsider when we met at senior school. For years, the three of us had been inseparable until I’d screwed it up. There was something about Maddy that didn’t sit right with me. Stevie’s parents had died and the way she behaved around him convinced me she was using him for his inheritance. It seemed a little too convenient when she fell pregnant so soon after they met and the plans for a rushed wedding didn’t convince me otherwise. After too many drinks when we were out celebrating Rob’s eighteenth, I stupidly shared my views. It got heated and nearly came to blows. I apologised when I sobered up but I couldn’t take back what I’d said and I couldn’t undo the damage.

I started medical school and made new friends but I was gutted that I’d lost touch with Rob and Stevie. It was a couple of years later when I discovered that the marriage had barely lasted five minutes. I’d been right about Maddy using Stevie but for the wrong reason. She wanted a baby and, when they lost it, she didn’t want him anymore.

I thought about getting in touch but too much time had passed and I thought it would look like I was saying, ‘I told you so.’

‘Maddy sounds like a delight so I’m sure your comments were justified at the time,’ Jemma said after I’d told her the story.

‘Thanks, but you’re being a bit generous. I was in the wrong and I regret that now.’ It was only after I lost Nikki that I thought about Stevie again and felt the pain and loss he’d have felt at losing his parents, wife and baby. He could probably have used another friend and I hadn’t been there. Nothing I could do about it now, though.

Clearly Jemma didn’t think so. ‘Then put it right. Get in touch with him.’

I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘After sixteen years?’

‘Why not? People reconnect through social media all the time after longer friendship gaps than that.’