‘Well, it was hardly groundbreaking advice.’

‘No, but it was.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s so easy to imagine what’s going on in each other’s heads, and to have all these conversations with yourself, when really the conversation you should be having is with each other. Once we started talking, we both said things that neither of us had realized.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like all these years I thought it was the men who were the commitment-phobes.’ She looks down at her summer dress and picks at an invisible thread. ‘But actually it was me all along.’ She raises her eyes to meet mine.

‘You really think so?’

‘Yeah.’ She says it quietly at first, then more firmly. ‘Yeah, I do. And as soon as I was honest – not only with Danny, but with myself – it was as if all my fears fell away. Like they lost their power somehow.’

A look passes between us. Fears are such strange things, aren’t they? We’re so scared we don’t confront them; yet it’s keeping them hidden that makes them scary. Like monsters in horror movies, as soon as they’re unmasked they’re not so frightening after all.

‘Turned out I was the one who didn’t want to commit. How mad is that?’

I raise an eyebrow. ‘You only just realized that?’

Naomi grins, leaning her head back and gazing up at the cloudless sky. ‘I was scared of being trapped. Making a mistake. Needing someone. Scared of letting someone in, in case they let me down.’ She takes in a deep breath, then lets it out. ‘In case they broke my heart.’

‘You’d still survive. Look at me.’

‘You didn’t simply survive it, Liv – you’ve thrived.’ She looks across at me. ‘You’re my superhero.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ I give an awkward laugh.

‘I do. I saw how devastated you were when David left, how scared and brave you were being that day when you packed up and left London. Superheroes rescue people, and you rescued yourself. That’s pretty heroic.’

I shrug. ‘It happens to lots of people. I’m not special.’

‘Just because what happened wasn’t extraordinary, it doesn’t mean that you’re not.’

I fall silent, letting her words sink in. We grow up thinking we need lots of friends, but as I’ve got older I’ve realized all you need are a few who matter. Naomi has always allowed me to feel how I feel. She’s never got mad or impatient with me, for not getting over my divorce as quickly as some people thought I should. And yet she’s never allowed me to get stuck in my misery, either.

‘If I told you I loved you, would we be veering dangerously into weepy, drunken “I love you, man” mode?’ I ask and she grins.

‘Probably. But it’s my birthday, so I’m allowed to get drunk and weepy and tell you I love you.’

‘What’s my excuse?’

She laughs. ‘You’re going to be wearing an outfit picked out by a seventeen-year-old.’