There was a mix up at the hospital when I was born. I should have been Adele, lyrical queen of the breakup. So she was three years older than me and the numbers didn’t quite work, but every one of her albums was the soundtrack of my life. It was like she had a telescope peering into my fuck-ups as her own brand of inspiration for the next album of tearjerkers and haunting songs of lost love and broken hearts.

In my personal life, I was winging it, but in work, I had found my calling. It was the only place I knew what the fuck I was doing. I qualified as a social worker three years ago and loved it. I wasn’t the type of person who knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life the moment I entered the world. I didn’t even know my calling when the final bell rang at secondary school. I left when I had just turned sixteen, a summer baby, and waited for my dream job to find me. While waiting, I fell into tedious job after tedious job, and when I hit eighteen, I was sure that I had already worked hard enough to earn my pension and made enough tax contributions to build a whole housing estate and grit the winter roads.

Working various factory jobs meant absolutely nothing to me. They only helped to layer my devil-may-care attitude. After a short stint making pork pies, I left after witnessing a bloke casually push a scampering rat into a vat of pig meat. This turned me flexitarian and made me realise a dream job wouldn’t just turn up and knock on my door.

I guess I was steered towards social work. And thank God I was because two weeks into packing socks for a well-known clothing store, I honestly thought I was going to die of boredom. I had visions of the night manager finding me under a pile of argyles and slipper socks, an empty bottle of whiskey at my side proving I needed a pick-me-up to continue the count.

I lived for meeting new people and learning things about them, accepting their fuck-ups and dramas, but guiding them in a different direction. Social work just clicked for me. As did Elle, my best friend, my guiding light and partner in crime. We trained together, shared the same placement, and were now working in the same child protection team.

Elle and I were polar opposites from the moment we entered the world. She was born without complications and was lovingly placed on her mother’s chest as her father wrapped his arms around them and welcomed their beautiful new baby into their family. I, on the other hand, was born by emergency caesarean, kicking and screaming with an unconscious mother and a father who didn’t know a baby’s arse from its elbow. I was a whirlwind child. I loved the water and was only happy when I was in a pool or a bath. Elle’s mum always described her as a quiet, lost in her own anxiety kind of child. She was always thoughtful, pensive and watchful, but I was a storm in a broom cupboard waiting for my next adventure.

Elle went on to achieve more than she thought she was capable of because she worked her arse off through university. My pass was a complete fluke because my views were simple: If I could do the direct work, care about the well-being of the children and their families and keep that central to my practice, writing an essay about social theory was pretty fucking secondary.

Our views on love were different too. Elle wanted the fairy-tale that was imprinted from the books her parents read to her every night at bedtime. I'd seen nothing of those Prince Charming characters, no kisses to wake you up after falling into a deep sleep, and no promises to live happily ever after. I didn’t learn my stereotypes from fairy-tales; I saw first hand that love had the capacity to build you up but then knock you down just as fast.

Glancing at the clock after hearing the intercom buzz, I picked up the phone and pressed the button to open the main door. A minute later, I heard a knock and launched towards it with a sock skid. ‘Hey roomy,’ I said, flinging my arms out as I answered the door to a large cardboard box with Elle standing behind it, her blonde hair curving round the sharp edge of the box. Another cube of cardboard walked across the landing and Ben, her boyfriend, peeked out from behind it.

‘Oh my God! Roomy! This is so exciting!’ she squealed, dropping the box to the floor and clambering over it to give me a hug.

‘Hey, Abi.’ Ben was used to us. They had been seeing each other for a few months and I took credit for their somewhat insta-love connection after I’d talked her into signing up to a dating website. Totally out of character and thoroughly ballsy for her.

‘Ben, my honey bun,’ I called. He was easy to tease, so I was rewarded with a heavy blush. ‘We’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other now Elle’s moving in. Ground rule number one: You can stay, but keep the noise down. Ground rule number two: I don’t want to wake up to find you naked in my kitchen. From Elle’s description, you’re blessed, and depending on my mood, I don’t want to be thinking about it all day or dry heaving at my desk.’

‘OK,’ he smiled hesitantly, still unsure of how to take me.

‘Take no notice. Come on, let’s get settled in,’ Elle said, lovingly stroking her hand down his arm as I ignored her.

‘Ground rule number three: If you eat it, replace it. If you follow the rules to the letter, we’ll be fine.’

I took her through to the recently renamed spare bedroom, previously known as the dumping ground. I cleared so much shit out of it when she agreed to move in and I was sure I had done my back in carrying an old mattress down the stairs.

It was a tiny box room, but anyone would think I’d offered her a suite in Buckingham Palace. I was looking forward to sharing again. Although it pained me to admit, I was feeling the stirrings of loneliness, usually starting at around 9:00 p.m. every weeknight, the early hours of Saturday mornings, and pretty much all day Sunday.

‘You don’t have much with you,’ I said as I watched her unpack the two boxes.

Ben laughed. ‘You should see what she’s left behind.’

‘I need to clear it all out. My parents want to turn my old room into a gym. What a cliché,’ she laughed. ‘I’m really grateful for the room, but I’m not going to fit much in it, so I have to be selective.’

‘Very,’ Ben said, raising his eyebrows as he pulled six designer handbags from the cardboard box at his feet.

I smiled as I leaned against the doorframe. I was an only child and had craved the company of others for as long as I could remember. My mum was wild and unpredictable. She lived life to the full, pushing limits and shaking the world around her. Selfish was a word I used to describe her, especially during my teenage years. Now I look back and see a damaged woman lost to her grief and desperately trying to cling on to the good.

Dad died when I was eight. I was the textbook example of complicated grief. I loved him as a daughter loved her father, the unconditional love for a parent written in the small print after the sperm chases its way to the egg and makes a life; a love so often taken for granted and misunderstood, especially when a father fucks it up. With that love, came hate. I was often on the end of his temper, fuelled by the alcohol that would eventually poison his system. For a long time after he died, I felt numb. I told my grief counsellor that I felt nothing for my dad, but that wasn’t entirely true. I actually felt a heap of guilt for feeling nothing.

Mum remarried three times. All colossal cock-knockers. All out for themselves and couldn’t give a flying fuck about the daughter because of her filthy mouth and bad attitude. I usually ignored them or lashed out. They hated me, which was fine because I hated them with ten times more passion and grit. Teenage angst and a hormonal mother struggling with grief and a growing alcohol dependency did not make a happy home. She blamed me when her marriages broke down, and I blamed her for being a shit mum. Cut to now—two years of grief counselling, a three-year social work degree, and working with families who really were in the shit had helped our relationship immensely. Officially, I was still flat sharing with my mum. We moved in when I was nineteen, just before I started my degree. She paid the rent but rarely stayed over, preferring the company of her man of the month—Eric with the man bun who was far too unattractive to get away with; he was young enough to be her son but they were around the same mental age. Mum was bold, ballsy, and everyone’s best friend. She took no prisoners and didn’t suffer fools gladly, but she had a heart of gold.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

My couldn’t give a fuck attitude was inherited directly from my mum. I was always a free spirit and hated being tied down to her constant stream of husbands, boy toys and evening entertainment.

Moving in to a flat that was essentially mine wedged my feet on the ground and collected up my ego and wildness in one swoop, encouraging me to be more responsible and allowing me the freedom to settle.

‘I’ve got you a present to say thank you for letting me move in.’ Breaking my thoughts but keeping the smile on my face, Elle held out a gift bag. I unwrapped the tissue paper, crinkling it apart to reveal a small, spotty teapot with the words tea solves everything across the belly. She knew I collected pottery. I loved bold designs and mismatched patterns. I also had a mug collection covered in expletives. Coffee tastes better in a mug emblazoned with the words fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck.

‘I love you. Do you know that? This is amazing. Thank you.’

‘I wanted to carry on the tradition. We’ve drank enough tea, coffee and hot chocolate to solve our problems over the years.’

‘And wine. Don’t forget wine,’ I laughed.

‘Well, maybe we can tip a bottle in if things get really bad,’ she replied.

‘Not going there. We’ve only got good times ahead of us. I can feel it.’