‘Nope, I can’t eat them.’

‘What? You love a burrito! Are you still annoyed at me for refusing to go get one with you at two in the morning?’ This is one of his favourite university stories. He always loves to tell it, so I always let him. ‘Why did that annoy you so much?’

‘It annoyed me so much because in the span of three years you must have asked me to accompany you to the late-night burrito van at least fifty times, and I always went with you, despite the fact I know that place didn’t have a food hygiene rating.’ He gets more animated as the story telling goes on. ‘I asked you once and not only did you say no, you also threw a book at me. I think I bled a little.’

‘Yes, but when I asked, you were always awake. When you asked, I was already in bed.’

‘Hmm, I suppose. I’ve always found it hard to say no to you.’ He pauses briefly and then looks away. ‘But that wasn’t actually what I was talking about. I meant the time we went on a date and then you ghosted me, even though I bought you a delicious and overpriced gourmet hotdog.’

I stop in my tracks.

‘When on earth did we go on a date?’

‘Second term, first year. I finally plucked up the courage to ask you out, remember? We went to watch the rugby together, I bought you a hotdog with onions and extra gherkins. A real Casanova moment. We had a nice time, at least I thought so. But then you never seemed interested in giving me a second chance. It was such a scarring experience I haven’t touched a hotdog since.’

I remember this well; it was a very good hotdog. But my version of events is quite different.

‘That was absolutely not a date! There were fifteen people going together! All of whom you had invited! That is categorically not a date. You don’t invite other people on a date.’

‘Yes, but I invited you first, and I only invited the others because I didn’t want you to get overwhelmed or scared or something. You had a tendency to run away. You still do.’

‘You are totally nuts. Nuts.’ The idea that the two of us would go on a date is preposterous. But he’s right – had he asked me out on an actual date, I definitely would have run away.

We walk along a bit further in silence as I absorb this new information.

I’m quite glad I didn’t know he meant that to be a date. Could you imagine? It would have ruined our friendship. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had him by my side at uni. If we weren’t friends now.

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

‘Thank you for helping me today, by the way – it means a lot.’ I’m half fired up and eager to work, and half overwhelmed at my lack of knowledge and the amount I need to do. But it was nice to talk things over. And I was right to trust him; he wasn’t at all negative about any of my extremely meandering thoughts and plans. ‘Most of the time I have all of these thoughts and ideas, but then when I go to act on them I worry that what I once thought was brilliant is actually useless.’