‘Cake!’

      Everyone cheered as Charlotte slid the very last cake they would ever eat as uni flatmates on to the table. She dropped a shy curtsey and stood back, watching as they plunged their forks into the huge lemon drizzle. No plates. No serviettes. No ‘you firsts’. Just pure, unadulterated, last-day-of-uni bliss.

      She’d miss uni. She’d miss her friends. These last three years had been the first time in her life she’d felt as if she mattered. As if all of her silly hopes and dreams might have a splash of validity. London, she worried, could very well prove her parents right. That taking a ‘useless degree’ in art history would land her one job and one job only: cleaner.

      ‘Ohmigawd, Charlotte. This is ah-mazing!’ Izzy’s mid-Atlantic accent cranked west as she sang out, ‘I’m surfing my nirvana waves!’ Last week her bliss was having a booty boogie. Izzy’s happy place was a moveable feast.

      ‘Izz. Your bit’s at that end.’ Charlotte always made one end gooier than the other because Freya liked it fluffy, Izzy liked it gooey and Emily said she didn’t really give a monkey’s so long as it looked and tasted like cake.

      Her eyes jumped from friend to friend as conversations pinged all over the shop. Everywhere but on the question of when they’d meet again. Did they care as much as she did that their ‘household’ was splitting up? It was a bit late in the day to fret about whether or not her role as ‘The Organizer’ was the only reason they adored her. She’d almost slavishly taken to the role, taking charge of any and all pragmatic concerns – finding housing, creating cleaning rotas, always ensuring there was loo roll. Three short years ago they were strangers. Today? Today they were the most mismatched gaggle of girls she’d ever had the pleasure of calling her very best friends.

      ‘This is cardiovascular disease on an epic level,’ Emily said through a mouthful of icing. ‘And I never want it to end.’ The future Doctor Cheung was too busy waiting for Izzy’s cackle of delight to notice how pleased Charlotte was at the backhanded compliment. If there was a way to preserve this moment in time – capture it in a jar, press it into a scrapbook, dangle it from a charm bracelet – she would do it in an instant.

      ‘C’mon girlie,’ Freya pointed at the empty chair beside her, her Scottish burr exaggerated by the rolling of the r. ‘Would you park your wee bum for once?’

      Charlotte sat, pretending she didn’t care that they were devouring the cake like heathens, missing the fact she’d spent that little bit extra on the lemons, added a half-cup more drizzle, precious pence spent that she could barely afford on her student grant, because that’s the way her friends liked it best, but, as ever, she was unable to stop herself from beaming. She basked in the glow of their approbation. Relished that they loved it every bit as much as they had when, just a week into uni and shy as a dormouse, she’d made one for them in their very first student accommodation.

      ‘Nummy!’ Freya swept her wavy, pixie cut to the side and grinned at Charlotte. ‘Promise me we’ll meet up in London and eat cake?’

      ‘No!’ Emily put up a hand. ‘She’s mine. I refuse to let her leave. I claim you as my baking bitch for the duration of med school.’ She took a decisive bite as if the matter was settled. Emily had a way of drawing lines in the sand.

      They all turned to Izzy, waiting for her to stake her claim on Charlotte. She looked up when she felt the group’s eyes on her. ‘What?’

      Emily patted Izzy’s cheek. ‘Bless. What’s our little Izzy going to do out in the big wide world without all of us to look after her?’

      ‘Dunno.’ Izzy shrugged, that bloom of mystery surrounding her as it always did when she dodged their questions about the specifics of her life. ‘What are any of us going to do?’

       Chapter 1

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      Charlotte