Hearts in the London Rain

There we are — Fiona and I — standing in the pouring London rain, our hands linked to form a simple heart right in front of us, smiling like two girls who had just discovered the world was suddenly brighter.

Looking at it now, sixteen years later, my chest still tightens with the same wave of gratitude and quiet wonder I felt that afternoon.

I had only been in the city for two days. I arrived from the quiet moors of Northumberland, terrified, broke, and completely alone, wondering if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life chasing my dreams at the Royal College of Art. Then Fiona walked into my first class, took one look at the lost small-town girl I was, and decided I wasn’t going to face London by myself. By that same evening, she had opened her Notting Hill home to me, and the very next day we were out in this rain, laughing, soaked to the skin, making silly hearts with our hands like it was the most natural thing in the world.

This picture captures the exact second everything changed — the moment fear started to wash away and real friendship took its place. It reminds me how lucky I was to find someone who made a frightening new city feel like home almost instantly.

If you’d like to read the full, uncensored story of my first wild days in London — how that rainy afternoon led to so much more — you can find it in my eBook, Samantha’s London Abyss.