Hayley and I both swerved university and went to agricultural college instead. Being riding instructors is all either of us ever wanted to do, so it seemed pointless to pursue anything else. Now that I can’t see myself ever doing it again, however, I’m at a loss as to what else to try. It’s been more than eleven long months since I turned my back on the job that I once loved, and I haven’t so much as looked at an application form since. I know Hayley worries about me, just as David does, but I can’t seem to motivate myself into doing anything about it.

‘So, are you going to tell me how your date with Billy the Kidder went?’ Hayley asks, licking lemon icing off her fingers. ‘Or are you going to make me guess? Hang on – I know! He’s a terrible kisser? Or worse – he’s terrible at the other stuff and you were forced to call a halt halfway through.’

‘Stop!’ I implore, lobbing a stuffed-dog toy at her. ‘Nothing happened.’

‘Boo to that,’ she pouts. ‘Since when do you kiss and not tell?’

‘When I don’t even kiss,’ I reply, and Hayley cocks her head to one side.

‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘And there was me thinking he might have got down on one knee or something – we both know how bananas he is about you.’

‘Perhaps not any more,’ I reply with a sigh. Then, as Hayley gives me a questioning look, ‘It’s a good thing, really. Now I know for sure that we really are just friends – that’s all we’ll ever be, and that’s fine.’

‘Poor old Billy,’ laments Hayley, helping herself to another slice of cake. ‘But I suppose you can’t force yourself to fancy him.’

Never able to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, Hayley gets up off the bed and begins to prowl around the room, picking up and examining first a lipstick, then a necklace, before coming to a halt in front of my bookcase. Battered Jilly Cooper novels sit squashed beside the Enid Blyton adventure stories that I devoured growing up, while the shelf below groans under the weight of my Evangeline And … collection.

I watch as Hayley pulls out the first book in the series and flicks through the pages, smirking at the sight of my literary counterpart.