Eight people, one number.

I'd lived in Manchester six years and never noticed the table numbers at that place. She sat down and said 'twenty-two — same as my birthday,' and I felt the floor tilt a fraction. The bill came. 22.22. She laughed; I didn't, for about three seconds, then I laughed harder than her. We got married on the 22nd of the following May.

I was the last pick one year and the first pick the next, and both years I wore 22. When I stopped playing, I asked the kit manager if I could keep the shirt. She said no. I stole it anyway. It's framed above my desk now. I'd give it back if they asked, but they won't.

He wouldn't say why. He said, 'one day you'll find a reason.' He died in 2021 and my grandmother gave me his wallet. The card was tucked behind his driving licence, soft as cloth. I put it in my wallet the same day, and I've carried it every day since. I still don't know the reason.

2122, week 22. My mum swore the midwife checked the clock twice. I was born at 22:22 in Edinburgh. I'm now 22, studying astronomy, and I don't think it means anything, but I think it's OK to not think it means anything and still like it.

I'd never bet on roulette before. I'd never bet on anything before. My friends dragged me to a casino for my birthday and I thought, I'm not going to play the game but I want to watch. The croupier asked if I'd like one spin, 'on the house'. I gave him twenty-two pounds I wasn't supposed to have. He said 'the house doesn't work like that, mate,' but he let me play anyway. Twenty-two, red. I walked out and bought everyone dinner.

My therapist taught me to pick a word that isn't a word, and to say it when I feel a panic attack rising. I picked the number 22 because my mum said it was her lucky number and she wasn't alive to help me anymore. It works sometimes and doesn't work the rest of the time, but the ritual is the point.

We poured the concrete on 22 April 2017. My cousin, who was nine, wrote '22' in the wet concrete with a stick. The builder tried to smooth it out and I asked him not to. It's under the living room floor now. I know it's there. That's enough.

I picked it for my grandmother, who was born on a 22nd and died on a 22nd, 97 years apart. I was a slow rower. I was the slowest rower on the slowest boat in the club. We lost every race the first year and most of them the second. The third year we won a small regatta by a whisker, and I rowed in 22 that day, and I cried. Then I kept rowing slowly, but I kept the 22.