Watching a woman striking a catwalk pose before walking over a bed of 600C hot coals in a white wedding dress that never made it to the wedding was not exactly what I had expected to be doing this summer. Much less did I expect that, bar the strut and the gorgeous outfit, a few seconds later I would be making the same walk across those coals.
In fact, I was expecting to be at the beach. “Valencia, maybe?” my boyfriend had suggested a few months earlier as we excitedly anticipated our first summer together. The fantasy of sipping cervezas on the promenade against a backdrop of peachy sunsets quickly fell apart when, in April, he decided to call it quits.
