Instead, I navigated my way through the city and enjoyed the sensation of being lost in the bustle of people. The place was loud enough to forget your problems, but they caught up to me soon enough when I bumped into none other than Hamish – ‘Hey Edi, look at you! Glowing. Engagement suits you’ – and I needed something to counteract the blunt force of his throwaway comment. The nearest sanctuary I came to was the city centre’s museum and I ducked in, reasoning it would at least be quiet. I had to walk past the café to get to the main entrance of the portrait gallery – but I didn’t quite make it that far. The stench of sweet cinnamon and steamed coffee caught me by surprise and, led by my stomach, I decided that the four-hundred-year-old paintings were probably okay to leave for an hour longer.

‘What’ll it be?’ the young lad behind the counter asked. He was spotty and toothy and altogether geeky, and I thought back to a time when one of the popular girls would have probably described Rowan in exactly the same way.

‘Flat white and a toasted cinnamon …’ I pointed. ‘Whatever that is.’

He laughed. ‘Sure thing. Someone will bring that over.’

I found the quietest corner by a window, so there were distractions close by. But in a bid to be brave, I pulled my notebook out of my backpack. I skipped past the first three pages, to avoid the bulk of rules that Rowan and I had come up with. I knew them by heart now; I hardly needed a copy. So, I flicked to a clean page halfway through the pad instead. At the top of the page I wrote ‘Ways to meet people’ and then I wrote the number one and then I put the pen down, and looked around the busy space. It had never crossed my mind that people who didn’t find their soulmates at an early age might have to actively look for them. The poor bastards. I looked out of the window, then. How many of you haven’t found them yet? Alongside the first bullet point I wrote ‘through friends’, then followed that with a second: ‘through work’. The bullet points after were populated by ‘blind date’, ‘speed dating’ and ‘online dating’, the latter of which sent a cold chill running over me. I’d watched enough Catfish episodes to know what a terrible idea Tinder could be. How Faith did it so often was beyond me.

‘Where do people even meet each other?’ I said to no one at all while I looked back through the window.

‘Ah,’ came the beginnings of an answer, ‘your order.’