My mind is boggling at what your life might be like. Are there flying cars? Do people live on Mars? Did you finally reduce your unread emails to zero? I can’t begin to imagine.

So, what do I hope of me in seventeen years’ time? Mainly I hope you’re happy. And not the kind of on-paper happy that’s all about shiny cars and executive flats. I mean proper cheeks-ache-from-too-much-smiling-and-laughing-type happy. I hope your life is busy and full of love and friendship and that you’re finally comfortable in your own skin. I hope that you are being true to yourself and that you’ve become the woman you should have been and the one that you wanted to be.

But most of all I hope that you haven’t fucked it up and that you didn’t lose him, again.

X x

Chapter 1

I sometimes think that I am the only person in the world who doesn’t enjoy their birthday. There’s that assumption that the day has to be special and better than any other day of the year: the most fun had, the best meal ever eaten, the most love felt. There’s always so much pressure that it inevitably feels like you’re setting yourself up for a fall when it doesn’t live up to expectations. And this year, on my thirty-fifth birthday, for some inexplicable reason I’m feeling it even more.

I’ve never been that bothered about getting older. I didn’t have a midlife crisis when I hit thirty and I don’t dread the thought of turning forty or fifty, so I can’t put my finger on why all week I’ve been freaking out about turning thirty-five. It’s not even a special birthday.

I might not have the husband or children I once expected to have at my age, but I have so many other things to be grateful for. A flat all of my own. A boyfriend who’s sweet and funny, who isn’t in a hurry to fast-track our relationship. I’m co-director of a successful business. Yet, despite all this, I can’t shake the feeling that turning thirty-five is significant somehow.

I quicken my step towards the café where I’m meeting Dad and Layla, hoping they’ll distract me from my thoughts. A breeze whips around me and I pull my cardigan across my chest. It might be June and almost a midsummer’s day, but there’s nothing midsummer about today’s weather at all.

I immediately locate my dad in the corner of the café when I walk in.

‘There’s the birthday girl,’ he shouts, loud enough for the rest of the customers to hear. He folds his newspaper and places it on the table, before standing up to give me a big hug. ‘Happy birthday, love. Thirty-five, eh?’