‘I’ll make tea,’ I say. I always keep some herbal tea for her. For myself I plan to make a hot chocolate. ‘You can show me your shoes. Let’s go into the kitchen.’

We rotate ninety degrees to reach our destination.

‘I’m warning you now, they aren’t exciting shoes. They’re amphibious shoes for our trek in the rainforest.’ It takes me a moment to realize that by ‘our’ she means her and Mark, not her and me. She says it as if it’s obvious. But it wasn’t always that way. ‘Our’ used to refer to us. Our movie nights. Our favourite dance moves. Our preferred ice cream flavour. ‘Apparently they’re very quick-drying.’ Mia has been known to pack months in advance, so this prep doesn’t come as a surprise, but nevertheless this is not what I thought she was going to say. She’s the only person I know who wears heels out of choice on the weekend.

‘Amphibious shoes?’ I ask, in a way that hopefully conceals my sadness at no longer being part of her ‘our’.

‘Yes! Here, look, they have holes in the sole to enable the quick-drying action.’

I take a look and she’s totally right. I didn’t even know they made such a thing.

‘I didn’t even know they made such a thing.’ Turns out I have nothing else to say.

‘Neither did I. They are truly disgusting.’

I look at the shoes some more. It’s almost as though someone has used a hole-punch all over them. ‘I bet you get some funny suntan lines.’

She lets out a conciliatory laugh. ‘Oh God, I hadn’t even thought about that.’

The kettle boils and we sit down on the sofa. I make some space in and amongst the card supplies that are scattered over the table.

‘Are you OK? You seem a little off?’

‘No, I’m fine.’ And I am, but no matter how you answer a question like this, you never sound fine.

‘OK. So, how was your weekend?’

‘I haven’t done a huge amount, but I saw Tilly for brunch this morning, and that was nice. It was good to have a chill weekend after my disastrous second date with Toby.’

‘Oh no! What happened? Why was it so disastrous?’

I can’t quite bring myself to share the chilli episode. It’s a funny story but it requires more energy than I currently have. I shouldn’t have brought it up.

‘Ugh. It was just bad. I felt like we got on really well on the first date, but it wasn’t there on the second.’ Probably because his burning penis was in the way.

‘I’ve told you before, you need to give these things more time. I think it would be worth going on a third date, so you can see what happens.’

‘I’m not going to give him more time.’ I don’t know why she always assumes I’m being impatient.

‘OK, but I think you’re giving up.’

‘I’m not giving up.’

‘Really? Because, Bea, all you’ve been doing recently is giving up.’