On the Lawns, Ant makes a clumsy attempt to tackle Joel but falls over his own big feet, and Joel vaults across his best friend’s legs to score again.

The ball flies over two Gap sweatshirts laid as goalposts.

Six–nil to Joel. I’ve been counting.

‘. . . But why didn’t they choose the summer solstice to mark a new year?’ A speck of cider foam sits on Tim’s top lip, and I’m about to lean over and brush it away. Except . . . what if he thinks I am flirting?

I want it to go back to how it’s been since we were seven: in and out of his garden and mine; every Tuesday, checking each other’s vital signs in the Scout Hall. I hate the new us: how he guffaws at my jokes when they’re not funny and gives me sideways looks as though he’s only just noticed that I’m female.

‘Summer solstice would make for a better party. Sacrificing virgins, roasting pigs. Or the other way round.’

I get so twitchy listening to his meandering monologues. I imagine walking away from him. Kicking off my sore Shelley’s heels. Heading on to the playing field, the icy blades of grass spiky through my tights.

In this other reality, I leap towards the ball like Bambi. Score a goal. Joel would embrace me in a victorious hug.

Louise Norman’s jaw – newly braced but sadly not wired shut – would drop, astonished at my daring.

My grace.

I’d settle for being surprising. For being noticed. At school, at home, here. Anywhere would do.

At the edge of my vision, Joel is running. And then he’s not.

He doesn’t trip, or throw out an arm to right himself or break his fall. Instead, he drops, face down, legs outstretched. The boy who fell to earth.

The others play on: Fat Matt does a double take when he gets possession of the ball, whoops as he propels it towards the neglected goal.

I wait for Joel to get up. What’s he playing at? He’s not a joker the way Ant is, and I can’t believe he’s risked injury by falling so clumsily. In his last year at school, before he got his big break with the Dolphins, Joel was the only one of the cool kids never to smoke or drink. Even tonight he’s stuck to orange juice . . .

Ant pivots back, calling out, ‘Come on, Joel, you knob,’ and when he reaches his friend, he nudges him with his big black shoe. Once. Twice. The third time is more of a kick.

Joel doesn’t move.

Certainty strikes me like lightning. I drop the can of cider – Tim is still waffling on about the satanic origin of Christian rituals – and though I fully intend to walk towards Joel, my legs have other ideas.