She takes another sip of tea, and shuffles backwards on the bed until she’s leaning up against the headboard. She stretches her legs out again, and without thinking, I lift her foot back into its previous position on my thigh. If she finds this at all weird or forward, she doesn’t show it. She just smiles at me and says: ‘It’s crazy to think about, though, isn’t it? Once uni’s over, we’ll have no one telling us what to do any more. We’ll actually have to decide what to do with every day of our lives.’

‘So what do you want to do with them?’ I ask her.

She laughs, and wriggles back against the headboard, trying to get comfy. ‘I just want to … be happy, I suppose. Enjoy life. Have good friends. Be a good friend. Do something for a living that I love.’ She pauses for another sip of tea. ‘First up, though, I want to go travelling. Bit clichéd, I know, but when you grow up in a tiny village where you know everyone, the idea of visiting the other side of the world seems quite appealing.’ She shrugs. ‘That’s the plan, anyway. But I bet I never get round to it.’

‘I bet you will,’ I say. Because I know she will. She and Jamila will spend five months backpacking around South East Asia and Australia straight after uni, while I work night shifts in a pub in Ealing, missing her like mad.

It’s crazy to think about that period now. We’d been going out for two and a half years at that point, but it still felt fresh and new and exciting. I was still so caught up in her; so hopelessly head-over-heels. I couldn’t believe that this funny, sexy, incredible girl was actually with me. It’s a feeling that’s starting to sink back in again right now – it has been ever since that kiss in the maze.

What’s happened to that feeling in 2020? When did it get lost along the way? How did we turn into this bitter, sniping couple, constantly at each other’s throats?

We sit in silence for a few seconds, at opposite ends of my single bed, just smiling and looking into each other’s eyes. And suddenly it’s like I really am nineteen again, my brain fizzing with the excitement of having met someone this brilliant. Someone I feel an instant, inexplicable connection with.

Daff yawns and stretches her arms behind her head. The urge to lean forward and kiss her grips me tightly again, but I content myself with another large slurp of tea.

‘What are you doing for Christmas, then?’ I ask.

‘I’ll just be at home,’ she says. ‘The usual stuff: stockings, presents, turkey. My mum’s not actually that big on Christmas, though. We tend to do all the proper, extended-family stuff on January the first.’