‘I think it’s great,’ Adzo said as we walked back from Pret on her lunch break. I’d met her outside the office, not quite graduating to going in. The house was too empty, too much of a reminder of my aloneness, so I’d grabbed Carol and we’d trekked into town in the September sun, desperate to tell someone about what was happening. ‘It’s the perfect balance of him being somebody who has no idea what’s happened these past few weeks – or the past twenty years – without being a total stranger. He’s a man, so you can remind yourself not all men are trash, but it’s platonic, so you don’t have to wear an uncomfortable bra just to make the old girls look good.’

‘This is an interestingly specific assessment of me simply meeting up with an old friend.’

Adzo took a bite of her falafel wrap. ‘Would we even call him that? An old friend? You didn’t even recognize him when you saw him.’

We loitered outside our work building, but then I worried I’d bump into Chen and so guided us around the corner to a bench.

‘I can’t explain it, but—’

‘You enjoy how he remembers you, and you want to remember that version of yourself too. Yes. I know.’

‘Sorry if I’m repeating myself.’

‘Only be sorry if you’re repeating yourself as a way to excuse wanting to hang out with him. You’re heartbroken and have been trampled on, and you’re still allowed to feel this …’

‘Pull,’ I supplied. ‘It’s a pull towards him. He’s funny, and light-hearted, and—’

‘And he makes you feel funny and light-hearted too. Yup. It’s all there in the log book for judge and jury to see. All the evidence is accounted for.’

I threw my crusts to the ground for Carol and wiped my fingers on the hem of my dress. ‘You’re a horrible friend.’

‘I am. I’ve made a note of that in the evidence system too. Now gimme a crisp, will you. I should have got a packet myself.’

‘Why do I feel nervous?’ I asked her. She looked at me, and I thought she was going to say something cutting and witty again, but instead she smiled and said, ‘Annie. Chill your beans. He sounds like a good friend to have. Just enjoy it. If Old Annie was all about planning everything down to the very last detail, I definitely think New Annie can afford to be in the moment a bit more, consequences be damned.’

New Annie. I turned the notion of her over in my thoughts, examining the catch. I couldn’t find one. I did want to be new. Different. All of this had to be for something, didn’t it? Isn’t that how people survived things – they gave them meaning?

‘Okay then,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll seize the day.’