Ugh, I thought. ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘And neither are you. He’s not . . .’ I moved my hands around in the air, summoning help. ‘A law of physics.’

‘You should still be nice to him.’

‘Why?’

‘It would make my life easier.’

‘I always make your life easier.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Like now?’

This was unfair, because we both did many things to make each other’s lives easier and also obstructed each other in countless tiny ways. If we counted them up and balanced them out, the outcome would still be that the universe doesn’t maintain a classical balance of cheer and woe, and everyone has to figure out for themselves how they feel about the totals.

This conversation was working me up like a chittering rodent, because we were dangerously close to the fact I did not like Lachlan, and this was both a foundational truth and completely unsayable. I did sort of like Chris L, and this too was unsayable because there was no basis for liking him, except his fashions and the briefest glimpse of his general mien. These facts seemed to hold the risk of mutual exposure, since they were both secrets about whether I liked someone or not.

Dan drummed his fingers on his lips, the habit of a boy who’d once smoked, and would still probably like to, but had finally taken the advice of his GP and now only smoked with Lachlan when they were drunk.

‘Come to the pool today,’ he said.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Which one?’

‘Fitzroy.’

‘No thank you,’ I said.

‘Come on,’ he said cheerily. ‘It’ll be thirty degrees.’

I knew this, clearly, as I knew all of summer’s details. It was newsier than Chris L, it was newsier than news.

‘Why does it have to be Fitzroy,’ I said.

‘Because I like it,’ he said.

‘Oh please,’ I said. ‘You’re keeping secrets.’

He shrugged as if to say, sure I’m keeping secrets, I’m being secretive, you got me, making his eyes look innocent and shouldering past me.

‘You’re keeping secrets,’ I yelled after him.

‘And the answers you seek are in the future,’ he intoned. ‘At a location I have already conveniently revealed.’

I knew this would be a boring secret – let me guess, Chris L will be there – but I also knew that I would definitely go. For a person who spent a lot of his time safeguarding his freedoms, I was also an agent of Dan, a captive of his, really. I went where he wanted me, and did as he wanted, and for a long time, in this way, I was happy.

Dan once told me there are two kinds of men: the ones who get away and the ones who lose them. I found this statement almost too amazing. Not because it was overdramatic – Dan had just been dropped and say what you want about unpleasant situations, they give you carte blanche to be as dramatic as you want. It was amazing because when we’d met, in my first year of uni, he’d walked drunk into a lecture on the pretwentieth-century novel and decided to pick a fight about this exact thing: dyads.