When he left to get changed, I noticed the empty pill box that thankfully he hadn’t and folded it up, small enough to hide inside an empty cigarette packet on the side. I then contemplated moving over to the couch, but I didn’t want to leave the small comfort of my bed, so I switched on the TV and lit a fag, coughing as the smoke entered my fragile body. Dangling over the side, I retrieved the bottle for one last swig before his return, which left me feeling sick again. Checked my phone. Nothing. My mind returned to searching for you in the Castle, and a new torturous idea that you were instead at your flat having sex with a better-suited posh girl. I dragged my hands, harsh, over my face to erase the image. Took another gulp.

When Dale returned, in his ‘comfy garb’, he threw himself on the bed between me and the wall and said, ‘For fuck’s sake, we’re not watching Murder, She Wrote.’ So we put on Blade Runner. He had to watch it a few times a year and hadn’t since June apparently. I didn’t care what was on: I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts were only of you. Agonizing. Yet forbidden to be expressed. Like the last scene in Brief Encounter. Where she’s sat in the armchair and her husband is so happy to have her back. She cries in his arms. But he is unaware that the tears are not for him.

Dale moved Blusha out of the way and gestured for me to rest my head on his chest. Tentatively, I complied. Surprised at the comfort it induced. Exhausted, drunk, I finally relaxed. My eyelids dropped further with each exhalation.

Then he said, ‘You know . . . I thought you were seeing someone. And that perhaps it was over.’

I didn’t move. Didn’t lift my head. ‘What do you mean?’

He too remained still. ‘The past few weeks . . . I just . . . I just got it in my head you were seeing someone.’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘I don’t know . . . You were . . . different, I guess. You didn’t come home—’

‘I was with a friend from school—’

‘Yeah . . . yeah . . . I know. You said. So, are you?’

‘What?’

‘Seeing someone?’

I pushed myself up, turned to him. You would have been so proud of me because I looked directly in his eyes and said, ‘No . . . no, of course not. You’re my best friend. If I was seeing someone, don’t you think you’d be the first to know?’

He covered his face with his hands. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. That’s what upset me – the thought that you hadn’t. I know I’ve been a bit funny lately . . . That was why. I’m sorry . . . and there you were having a really shit time and I was up my own arse.’