Matt didn’t want to have this conversation. In the first place, there was no point, because they’d already had it about twenty-five times, and whatever he said to Lindsey – his girlfriend since Christmas – it wouldn’t stop her from telling him that when he went to university he’d meet someone and leave her behind in boring old Stockton Heath, and in the second place, his heart wasn’t in it. He thought it was entirely possible that he would meet someone else, and, the more she talked about it, the more attractive a possibility it seemed.

‘I won’t,’ he said, aware there was a dangerous lack of conviction in his voice. ‘We already talked about this. I’m going out with you.’

Lindsey propped herself up on her elbow. ‘There’ll be loads of girls there. And you’ll end up falling for one of them.’

‘I won’t. I promise I won’t.’

‘You will. I know it.’

The first time they had gone through this pantomime – you will, I won’t, you will – it had lasted for what seemed like hours, until Matt had realized that there was no way to convince her he had no intention of breaking up with her in favour of someone else. More to the point, he’d learned that she didn’t want him to. What she wanted was a promise that he wouldn’t, which he had discovered when he had asked her what he could say to make her believe him. Now, he went straight to it.

‘What can I say to make you believe me?’ he said.

‘Promise me.’

‘Promise you what?’

He knew what was coming. It was as though there was a script.

‘That you’ll never leave me. That you love me.’

He rolled onto his back. He didn’t want to tell her he loved her. All he wanted was to go downstairs and smoke a cigarette in her parents’ back garden, then see who wanted to go to the pub that evening.

‘See?’ she said, with a note of triumphant vindication in her voice. ‘You won’t say it. You can’t.’

‘I’ve already said it. Loads.’ This was always how the conversation ended up: with him swearing undying love to her, and each time it felt a little bit less like the truth.

‘You don’t love me,’ she said. ‘You never have.’