When I got home I watched the taillights of Dominic’s Pontiac fade away into the distance, and I thought about our deteriorating relationship. Who I was. Who he was. Where we were going. Or not going. I’d almost broken up with him an hour before, but I’d held on. Why, why, why?

Perhaps it is because you feel lonely? Jane suggested.

Yeah.

And because you are about to embark on something unknown next month — your graduate studies at a new university — and you crave the familiar?

Yeah. That, too.

And, additionally, because you will be two-and-twenty next week and wish to celebrate it with someone dear to you?

I didn’t speak, but I nodded. I should’ve known Jane would figure it out. She’d been my constant companion, my most secret friend for years. She knew me as no one else could…or wanted to.

All will turn out right, Ellie, she said softly. Trust in yourself and in your instincts. You have a strong intuition about the honour and character of others. It is stronger, perhaps, than you realize, and it gains further strength with time and experience. Do not despair.

Thanks, Jane, I whispered, fighting back the despair that curled in my stomach nevertheless.

So, a week later, when I found myself sitting at that same Chicago bar, after being promised a romantic birthday dinner we were already thirty minutes late for, I took a good long look around me:

• I was in a place I didn’t want to be, with people who talked about big change but did nothing.

• I was dating a man who, while attractive and reasonably intelligent, didn’t appreciate me, and who was also part leech.

• I was exactly twenty-two (as of 8:28 that morning), unmarried, inhaling secondhand smoke, bored, frustrated and hungry.

The evening couldn’t get any worse.