I looked around at their stunned expressions. They seemed less surprised about the woman reveal, and more surprised at my worry about the woman reveal. Since the first date with Fred, I’d drafted a hundred different conversations – Cora keeping her distance, Betty assuming I wanted to sleep with her – where I explained my feelings and fenced their questions, most likely of all the real tough nut of: ‘So, does this make you gay now?’ A question I’d asked myself at least once a day since I met Fred; twice a day since she’d walked me home.

But, among the questioning glances that bounced back from my friends’ faces, there wasn’t even a flicker of something that looked like judgement. They were all face-value women; never in our friendship’s lifetime had I known Betty or Lily not say what they meant, or what they happened to be thinking (to a fault). So here they were, then, making a literal safe circle around me – and whatever it was I was going through – and despite the shit of the day beforehand, with them, all I felt then was love.

Chapter 26

When I woke up the following morning, my inbox was a mess of I got home safe. xx and Are you back yet? xxx as we checked in one after the other. There was also a message from Betty from only three hours earlier – Called George. Still not best man material. Love you babe. Bx – and another from Faith – Proud of you Edi – but nothing from Rowan. Had I expected there to be? I rolled over in bed and starfished until I took up both sides equally, and I thought, This is what life would be like … It didn’t matter that my mascara was (probably) down my cheek; nor that I’d definitely drunkenly stripped off on the way from the front door to the bedroom, meaning the place was littered with clothes. It wouldn’t matter, either, if I got drunk in the middle of the week whenever I felt like it, or if I brought someone home or called someone who …

Empowering as the starfish position might have felt initially, my hand quickly flew to my forehead with the half-memory of something – ‘I’m going to call anyway … No, no I don’t care’ – and it left me grasping about for my phone.

‘Bollocks.’