As she sat there trying to impose logic on to the events that had led her here, from behind the bedroom door came sounds of the bed jacking against the wall. Beth held herself still and listened, ashamed but helpless to it all the same. Her thoughts went to what was going on behind that door, picturing Corinne’s lithe body straddling his, all the blankets sliding away to the floor. That might have been me, she thought, the fact of this both shocking and strangely compelling. Would it have been so bad if she’d agreed? Shrugging off the mantle of childhood, shedding all her dopey innocence – wouldn’t that have been a relief?

She saw now, with a flash of clarity, how Corinne had been right. Beth’s failure to recognize this was a sign of her own weakness, her own lack of judgement. She envied Corinne’s confidence, the ease with which she moved through the world, but surely, if she wanted to attain the same ease and grace, she would have to surrender her doubts, her crawling fears and inhibitions? She needed to trust her friend.

The noises in the bedroom eased into silence. Calmness came over the room. Beth thought of the stillness that lay within, the lovers entwined, peace falling over the tangle of their limbs.

An act of generosity, that’s what it was. Where Beth had failed, her friend had stepped in to make up for her weakness. That was friendship. That was love. Corinne had paid Beth’s debt for her in the most intimate, most giving way possible, and Beth also understood that a new debt had been created. An obligation.

The bedroom door opened and Corinne stepped out, fixing the straps of her vest top and ruffling the ends of her hair with her fingertips. She pulled at the waistband of her cut-offs, readjusting them, then yawned, but Beth sensed the jitteriness within her. A brittleness in the air as she pulled the bedroom door closed and crossed the living-room floor. She wouldn’t look at Beth, withholding something of herself, enigmatic and haughty, with a loucheness that implied the whole thing was a drag.

‘Are you okay?’ Beth asked, nerves keeping her voice quiet.

‘Sure.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Corinne was hunting around for her belongings, gathering up her phone, her wallet, putting them all in the little silver tasselled bag she carried around with her.

‘I’m sorry I disappointed you,’ Beth went on. ‘That you had to do that for me.’

‘That’s okay. I liked doing it.’