‘Mum, this is Joe,’ I would have said. ‘My boyfriend.’ (Yes, I was getting ahead of myself.)

‘Wonderful to meet you, Joe!’ said imaginary Mum. Joe would have talked about his week in France while Mum asked the right questions. ‘It’s a shame you didn’t get a chance to do something like that, Ariel,’ she’d have said. ‘What an adventure!’

Mum would have loved that I’d met Joe. I knew that much.

I walked faster. I didn’t even know him. We’d sat at opposite ends of a bench, but it was a small bench and we were close together, and I was sure there’d been something between us. He was objectively gorgeous.

I tried to recalibrate the scene I’d just imagined, but with Sasha in Mum’s place. That could work, and this time, crucially, it could actually happen.

I was envious of his trip to France. I didn’t know which school he went to: he was wearing a blue hoodie over his uniform and I hadn’t thought to ask, but ours didn’t run a French exchange.

I should have got his number. Was I going to have to keep hanging around in the room in the shopping centre, after his French trip, in the hope of bumping into him again? The idea made me smile.

Sasha was sitting on the floor, her feet stretched out in front of her, leaning back on the sofa and watching a Netflix documentary about street food in Bangkok. Her hair was a tangle of dark blonde around her face.

‘Here you go.’ I put the shopping down.

She’d texted me to pick up some Pot Noodles on the way home, and against my better judgement I’d done it, imagining myself putting one in the basket for Joe too. I liked a Pot Noodle, and we hardly ever had them because of the wasteful packaging, lack of nutrition, and so on. Mum had hated them.

‘Oh, Sasha!’ I said, suddenly understanding. ‘Did the amazing Thai food on telly make you want a Pot Noodle? That’s a tiny bit tragic, you know.’

She looked up. ‘It’s not. It’s a brilliant short cut. The closest thing I could think of that involved no effort whatsoever. Near enough, right?’

‘I’d have bought real noodles. And some things to cook with them. We could have made it like that.’ I pointed to the screen, where a woman was stir-frying noodles on a grill in a Bangkok street.

‘It’s fine,’ said Sasha. ‘Stick the kettle on.’

I shrugged and flicked the switch. However, I decided that I was going to be a better sister and aunt than this. While the kettle was boiling, I sat at the table and wrote the days of the week on the back of a council tax envelope. Then I tried to think of seven different dinners, which was surprisingly difficult.

Proper noodles

Pasta

Pizza

Chilli