“I’m going to Paris on Sunday night.”

I bite my lip as soon as the sudden realization hits me: even though I’ve been planning this trip for weeks, this is the first time I’ve uttered the words out loud.

Jen makes a strange, guttural sound as though her dinner’s coming back to haunt her. To the surprise of no one, my best friend is now assaulting me with an expression normally reserved for someone who’s just announced that she’s getting married to a greasy, psychotic one-eyed hunchback she met three hours ago.

The You’re completely nuts, and I’m only slightly too polite to say it to your face look.

“What the living fuck did you just say?” She all but yells the words, drawing annoyed stares from pretty much every diner who was foolish enough to venture into Smokey Joe’s tonight looking for a quiet meal. I slide my butt forward in my seat, trying in vain to hide my mortification under the table.

Jen’s look of confused irritation only deepens when I greet her question with a half-assed shrug. She’s always hated my shrugging but I can’t help myself. It’s my best self-defence technique when I have no reasonable answer to give but I’m too stubborn to admit it.

“You know I’m, ahem, between jobs at the moment.” This is my way of reminding her that I left my last job because my boss was a skeezy, handsy asshole who didn’t understand personal boundaries, to put it mildly. “Anyhow, I thought I should take advantage of my freedom. So, Paris,” I say, letting a coy smile make its way across my lips as I tease an ornamental pink straw through my margarita. “On my own. For three weeks.”

Okay, I’m realizing how bat-poop crazy I must sound to her. I’m a total wuss when it comes to doing things on my own, and this is pretty much the equivalent of announcing that I plan to hop on a ship to Mars tomorrow and leave the oxygen at home. Maybe she’s right to look at me like I’ve just bought a one-way ticket to Crazyville.

“Yeah, but why?” Her brow furrows so hard that her forehead creases like bedsheets after a night of sweaty humping. Not that I would remember what those look like; I haven’t been humped by anything in eons, unless you count the odd night spent in the dubious company of a vibrator and a glass of cheap merlot.

“Because I need a change,” I blurt out, tucking strands of long blond hair behind my ears. “I need to get away. I need to find myself. I need…” I pause after realizing that I’m flailing my hands around like a lunatic, attracting bemused stares from every corner of the restaurant. Drunk woman alert, table four. “I need all the clichés that a single woman could want. I’ve got an itch and Paris is the place to go to scratch it, if you know what I mean.” I’m not even sure that I know what I mean, but it sounded really good in my head.

Jen blows out a disgruntled pfft sound, like she’s venting toxic gas out of her face. “If your itch is that bad, I’d say you need a gynaecologist, not another fucking continent. At the very least you need your brain examined. I feel like someone’s removed part of it.”

She’s not being bitchy, not really. This is her version of being protective. She’s been this way since we were kids, always looking out for me when I make bad decisions, trying to convince me to change my mind. But I don’t want protection from this decision.

I shoot her a narrow-eyed look of death before taking a long sip of my drink. Oh, God. Brain freeze.

When my tongue has regained feeling I say, “My brain is just fine, thank you very much. I do like your gyno idea, though. I could seriously use a pelvic exam. Preferably from an armless French doctor called Jacques with a huge schlong.”

Jen can’t help but let out a laugh at the image. “I hear they have many armless doctors in France, so I guess you made the right call.” Yes. She’s coming around. I knew she would.

“Sweet,” I exclaim. “Of course, knowing my luck, Jacques will turn out to have herpes and a dick the size of a golf pencil.”

“You mean le golf pencil. If you’re heading to France, at least learn the language.” Yes! She’s speaking French, totally on board now. Good ol’ Jen. “But Adriana, I want to understand this. You’re not exactly Little Miss Adventurepants. This seems so unlike you.”

“Okay, fine.” I sit up and lean in, ready to open my soul to her. “After my breakup with Roger, I realized that he’d done a serious number on my ego, made me feel like I’d be useless without him. I spent a few months just wallowing in a depressed stupor, wondering if maybe he was right—maybe I really was just a useless lump.”

“I had no idea…” Jen begins, but she shuts her mouth to listen again.

“It’s taken me forever to get to the point where I feel strong enough to do something like this. I want to prove to the world—to myself, most of all—that I’m perfectly comfortable on my own. I was stuck in a stifling relationship for far too long, and it sucked my soul away. I want it back. I want to be Independent Adriana, at least for a little. It’s finally time to embrace my singleness.”

She pulls back and stares at me, her brown eyes sizing me up to make sure I haven’t been replaced by a pod person. “You’ve been single for over a year. You’re telling me you’re only embracing it now?” She looks dismayed as it hits her just how hard the last twelve months have been for me. That’s what happens with happy people; sometimes they don’t notice the ones suffering around them. But I can’t exactly hold it against her. She has her own life to think about and besides, it’s not like I reached out for help. I’m a silent sufferer, damn it.

“A year in which I’m fairly sure I reached the second coming of my virginity,” I reply. “But I’ve come to accept my aloneness, and I feel pretty good about it, actually. I’m really, truly content. Happy, even.”

“Well, good. I’m pissed off that Roger made you feel shitty for that long, though. That jerkass wasn’t worth suffering over. He was a selfish donkey dick.”

“Roger didn’t make me feel shitty. I made myself feel shitty by staying in that relationship way too long. I failed at the one long-term relationship I’ve ever had. It was a punch to my self esteem.”

“You didn’t fail. He failed you by being such a twat-waffle. But back to the one year thing—has it really been that long since you got laid?” She looks like she’s trying to sort through one of the great mysteries of the universe. How the hell can a woman survive without sex for more than ten days in a row?

I nod, not sure whether to be ashamed or proud of my involuntary abstinence. “More than a year, actually. Roger and I didn’t exactly play hide le golf pencil for the last bit.”

“Well, your vagina has probably shrivelled into something that looks like a piece of dried fruit by now. Maybe a dirty romp with a French sausage is what you need.”

“My vagina is just fine, thank you.” I give her my best attempt at a snarl. “But this isn’t really about my naughty bits. It’s about me. I want to do something purely for myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that luxury.”

For a moment Jen’s face actually exhibits trace amounts of sympathy. This is what friends do—give you hell for your crazy decisions, then remember that they love you too much to be snarky for long.

“Fair enough,” she says. “Go to Paris and have a blast. You deserve it.”

I sit back in my seat and beam with satisfaction. She’s right.

I do.

“But there’s one thing I’m confused about,” she adds. Here it comes. “I thought you were looking for a new job? What happened to that plan?”

I bite my lip again. I do that when I’m nervous. “The search can wait a little while. Besides, I have another plan, one that I intend to set in motion while I’m in Paris.”

“Uh-huh.” Jen’s nodding, but her expression says What the hell are you up to?

Here it comes. The moment of truth. The greatest test our friendship has ever faced. Please, Jen, don’t snort-laugh at me. I muster every ounce of confidence that I have and look her in the eye. “I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided I want to write a novel.”

“What?” The word shoots out of her like a bullet, her mouth dropping open for the hundredth time tonight. Everything I say is a shock to her system, poor woman. Well, at least she’s not snorting. Or laughing, for that matter.

“I have a degree in journalism and English Lit. I should be writing,” I tell her, determined to make her understand why I’d venture into a career that’s a massive financial risk, to put it mildly. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Okay,” she says, placing her palms flat on the table. “Cool.”

I brace myself, ready to go on a tirade about how she should be more supportive, how this is my dream, how I want to be inspired by the romance of Paris, how…

Wait—was that it?

“Nothing?” I ask, dumbfounded. “No reaction?”

To my massive relief, her face lights up in the warmest smile I’ve ever seen. “Here’s my reaction: I want you to be happy. If writing makes you happy, you should do it. If going to Paris without your best friend makes you happy…”

“Ah ha! There’s the real issue at last,” I laugh. “You’re jealous as fuck.

“Of course I am. So jealous I could kill you.”

“That’s perfectly understandable. Just…do me one favour.”

“What?”

“Wait until after I get back to murder me, would you?”