I sighed. ‘Well, you know what? I think she’s right. I took her to a wholefood shop and we stocked up on all this heathy stuff.’ I paused. ‘I mean, you really are what you eat. You should always buy the best you can afford. It’s investment in yourself.’

‘If you say so,’ said Rohan. ‘But you’re never going to wean me off a good fry-up, so don’t even try.’

I laughed. ‘As if I would.’

We chatted a bit more, then hung up. Back in the living room, the congealed remains of my dinner sat on the coffee table.

‘You should have told him to call back later,’ Grace said, nodding at the food. ‘Now your dinner’s ruined. It’s not good to jump to his every beck and call. Keep him on his toes.’

‘Yeah, but…’ I shrugged, the irony not lost on me that, while she might dispense relationship advice, I was the one with a husband.

‘He wouldn’t have been able to call back till after work,’ I said, ‘and they’re five hours behind… I probably wouldn’t have got to talk to him till at least this time tomorrow.’

‘And the problem with that is what?’ Grace shook her head dismissively, and that old familiar feeling I used to get came flooding back: the feeling that she didn’t want me to have anyone else in my life. The feeling that, once again, I’d somehow let her down.

Twenty-Seven

You shouldn’t take it so personally when people say art is… ‘self-indulgent’. You shouldn’t feel guilty spending your days farting about with a paintbrush.

I needed to be stronger. I needed to arm myself against Grace. That much was apparent, and the key to that lay in understanding what our friendship was. After she went to bed, I opened up the iPad and, feeling like an absolute traitor, I searched ‘toxic friends’ once more.

Your friend blurts out criticism with a self-righteous attitude. Yes. Your friend tells you that you need to change. Yep. You’re walking on eggshells. Dear God, yes. You’re riding an emotional rollercoaster with your friend at the controls. Totally! I scrolled and clicked through to other websites: Women’s Health magazine, Psychology Today, reddit. They all told the same story.

You feel used. You’re giving more than you’re getting. The inconsistency and lack of predictability leaves you doubting everything.

I pressed my hand to my mouth, my throat thick with emotion. This was it. This was our friendship to a tee. How had I not seen it before?

On Huffington Post, I found ‘Warning Signs of a Toxic Friend’:

They’re covetous – they feel bitter when you acquire things they don’t have.

Those looks she gave me when I mentioned Rohan; and the little digs about being married; about the house.