Me stretched out on his bed on his laptop. Me lying on the lounge floor with my arms around his dog, Henry. Me attempting to give Henry a piggyback. Me several steps ahead in the field behind his house from when we took Henry for a walk. Me standing at the top of a hill, holding out my arms – I remember him taking that one. Me giving him side-eye as I caught him trying to take a picture of me against the view, the sunlit horizon and the fields and the river. A selfie of us together. A selfie of us with me holding Henry up so he could be in it too. A selfie of us making stupid faces. Back at his house, a blurred close-up of me laughing from when he’d thrust the camera at my face. The light gets darker, bluer, a photo of me curled up on the lounge sofa, the TV screen illuminating the tips of my hair. Me cross-legged on his bed in just my T-shirt and boxers, pointing at the camera, smiling. And then the one of me asleep.

There are so many of just me.

Me.

Nick just took a ton of photos of me.

Nick’s not a hugely creative person, he’s never been interested in photography or art or anything like that.

I think he just took them because he wanted to remember what this was like. What our life is like now. Chilling round each other’s houses, going on walks, eating together, sleeping together.

It sounds boring but it’s so wonderful.

It is. I feel myself tear up just looking at our life together.

I love this. I love us. I love our weird, boring life.

I take my phone out of my pocket and take a picture of our stupid-face selfie in the field. I send it to Nick.

NICK

My mate Sai has come round to stage an intervention. He’s going to Cambridge Uni in the autumn so I’m not entirely surprised that he’s smart enough to pick up on the fact that I am approximately seventy miles away from okay, but he hasn’t said anything useful so far and now we’re playing Mario Kart and eating Percy Pigs.

After we’ve been gaming for around half an hour and chatting casually about A Level revision and summer and how utterly shit Harry’s party was yesterday, Sai finally says, “So what exactly are you both having an argy-bargy about?” He puts the Wii remote down, swivels round on the sofa and folds his arms. “Because it sounds like nothing, to be honest.”

I sigh and pause the game. “Charlie broke up with me, mate.”

“Oh, come on. Why the bloody hell would he do that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Are you sure that’s what he was trying to do?”