‘I’ve already spoken to them. It’s OK. I can start next year instead. Look, I am sorry, really I am, but it’s too good an opportunity to miss.’ What was she saying? She’d been making plans and not telling me? We told each other everything, everything: periods, moods, how far we’d gone with boyfriends and how they rated as lovers; everything. My heart sank further. This was the first time I’d ever been excluded. ‘And you’ll be OK here, you’ve got Matthew and Juliet. You’ll meet people.’

I laughed. My brother and his girlfriend had even put in a mini-kitchen up on the top floor so they could be self-contained, away from the rest of us.

‘When?’ I asked.

‘In a week or so.’

‘Or so?’

‘On the twenty-eighth of August.’

I felt sick. She couldn’t be going. We had everything worked out. The house. Parties. Barbecues. College. We’d bought secondhand bikes to travel in together. We were going to bunk off in the afternoon to see movies. Go shopping. Bake our own bread. It was all planned.

‘Come with us if you like,’ she added, though with little conviction.

‘I can’t. You know I can’t. Mum and Dad left both Matthew and me in charge here. I can’t abandon him. Anyway, I couldn’t come and be a tagalong with you and Pete – that would never feel right.’

‘They shouldn’t have left you with all this,’ said Marcia, ever my champion. ‘What about your Aunt Carol or Uncle Mike? Can’t they take over?’

‘Not that simple. I mean, yes, they’re meant to check in on us every now and again, but they have their own families. Anyway, it was my choice to stay. Dad did keep asking if I wanted to go with them. I insisted on staying.’ I didn’t add that it had mainly been because I thought that, as long as I had Marcia for company, I didn’t think I’d need anyone else.

‘Yeah right, some option, the middle of nowhere, a million miles away,’ said Marcia.

‘You’ll be going that far. Millions of miles.’

‘Different. We’ll be travelling.’ She could see she had no argument and blaming my parents didn’t wash. She was abandoning me and she knew it.

‘We’ll have to find a new lodger to take your room.’

‘I guess.’ She couldn’t look at me.

I couldn’t help it. My eyes filled with tears. ‘Is it definitely definite?’

Marcia nodded. She still couldn’t look me straight in the eye. We’d had our own plans to travel in the holidays: Europe, maybe India. But why should she hang around waiting for me just because I had responsibilities? She had a boyfriend, was in love. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to go.

‘Maybe you’ll meet someone when I’m gone,’ she said.