“Best day eveeeeer,” my friend Jess shouted from the crystal clear waters of Malta’s Blue Grotto cave. Wearing a pair of John Lennon-style sunnies and a baseball cap, she treaded water next to a golden retriever named Miriam, who had decided to cannonball into the waves alongside her. It was the first time in years I’d seen her so joyful. There were embers of an old spark reigniting and I crossed my fingers that it caught.
Jess and I first met at Reading University in 2012 when I, an inveterate PE dodger, signed up to the ski society during freshers’ week. My first – and last – attempt at getting down a dry slope was a flop, but with my bum and ego already bruised, I had little left to lose when I asked Jess for her phone number. We went on to spend amaretto-fuelled nights dancing to Taylor Swift and I felt I’d lucked out in the friendship lottery. Then she met a boy.
