I was happy, I thought to myself, flopping down on the bed and idly flicking the pages of one of my books with my toes. I had a fun job that was flexible, I had Louisa, the best friend in the world, and I’d lost twenty pounds for this wedding, which had put me comfortably in the size twelve bridesmaid dress. I could even convince myself (if no one else) that a ten might have been a better fit. I wasn’t horrible to look at, long, light brown hair, greeny-blue eyes and since I dropped the extra weight, I’d discovered a pair of fairly impressive cheekbones. And I had Mark. Who wouldn’t love a good-looking, up-and-coming banker boyfriend? He should think himself lucky, I tried to convince myself. Yes, he’s got all his own hair, no hereditary diseases, a city banker salary, car and a mortgage, but I’d been attending horribly humiliating weight loss classes for the last six months (it wasn’t the weigh-ins that broke you, they were fine, it was the team leader who moonlighted as a dog trainer), I could cook and I cleaned the bathroom every Sunday without being asked. So no, sainthood didn’t beckon, but I wasn’t an awful girlfriend and we’d been together for ever, since we were sixteen. Ten years. But Louisa’s words bothered me a little bit. Was I happy? Maybe more content than bouncing-off-the-sofa-like-Tom-Cruise-ecstatic, but that’s still happy isn’t it?

I looked at my engagement ring. Classic solitaire. Not huge or flashy trashy, but not magnifying glass necessitating tiny. Mark had bought it with his first paycheque and presented it to me on a holiday to Seville, post-pony and trap ride and pre-lovely sex back at our hotel room. It had seemed horribly romantic at the time, but now it just seemed a horribly long time ago. Shouldn’t he be pushing me for a date? Just a little?

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said out loud to my confused reflection. Louisa was probably just getting in front of herself, she was married now after all, I just hadn’t expected her smug-married neuroses to kick in before she’d even got out of the church. There was nothing wrong with me and Mark. Ten years of nothing wrong, why would I worry? I tried to slip my beautiful, beautiful heels back on but my left foot seemed to have gained ten of my twenty lost pounds. After five fruitless minutes of searching the suite for my standby flats, I accepted that my shoe bag hadn’t made it out of the car. Which meant I would have to brave the drunken uncles, the dancing children high on wedding cake (I had seen balloons too–they were armed) and go to the car park.

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