‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said. I could see his face drop. He’d meant it as a fun reveal, not a strange revelation. I drank and drank the beer. He said, ‘I truly didn’t realise. Not till I picked you up.’ He was blathering. He meant the weekend before, in his car. ‘But I always used to see you guys hanging around at uni. You were always talking to him at the back of class.’

I could feel my eyes widen, widen. I didn’t know what to do with my mouth. But then I snorted, because it was true. Dan and I had always been in the back of classrooms, giggling and gossiping and not doing our work.

‘We were terrrrrible,’ I said.

‘No, you guys were really cute.’

The word was redeemed. ‘We were super cute,’ I said, and pictured Dan’s chin, which he was always saying he planned to someday ‘remove in full’ and replace with a more creditable jawline. Dan was all I thought about, I realised again and again. I was doomed.

‘What’s he up to these days?’

How dare you, I thought.

‘You don’t live together?’ he asked, winking.

I was being played with, and I tried to bring myself around to a headspace in which I could possibly enjoy this. Someone must enjoy this, or why would people do it?

‘It’s great, actually,’ he was saying. ‘I love it when guys have friends.’ He shrugged. ‘It just means you know how to maintain a close relationship. How many people our age can say that?’

He looked up from the pint glass, peeking for clues, assessing. He’d said this to himself in the car on the way over, it was a rehearsed speech, I was sure of it. He was proud of his open-mindedness. He had talked himself into it. It’s taught me how to maintain a relationship, I thought. Sure it has. I pictured myself hanging out in my new friend’s apartment, slipping out a vial of Dan’s nuptial vomit that I could press against my nose whenever I felt the tug of home.

The stranger must have graduated in the same year as Dan, which made me see the universe in a whole new way. I doubted he could have lived alone while he was still at uni, and the implications chilled my bones: how quickly things could move.

‘I have to confess something,’ I said. It suddenly seemed very important to touch someone tonight, even someone I’d already touched today and knew I didn’t like. ‘I chose this bar because it’s very close to my house.’

‘Uh uh,’ he said, wagging his finger. ‘This isn’t a hook-up.’ He leaned over the table. ‘It’s better to have something to look forward to.’ He winked again.

Of course that would be better, but did it seem like we would? I watched the possibilities fly like currency out of my hands.