Arriving at the party gave me déjà vu. Same people, same music, same house. The main difference was that as I wandered through the house, being stopped every few minutes, instead of how did I think the exams went, I was asked what results I got. After a few minutes, people began coming up and congratulating me on my results without me saying anything. As I always do at these kinds of things, I kept one eye out for Hannah, my lizard brain on the alert so I didn’t accidentally bump into her.

Part of my brain was also on the alert for Ruby, even though it felt a little different. When I thought I might run into Hannah, I panicked. I genuinely didn’t want to see her. And yet tonight, even though I knew she wasn’t here, a part of me was hoping in spite of myself to see Ruby. Maybe that’s what a relationship means, carrying a part of someone around for the rest of your life. I pictured myself elderly and skittish, the ghosts of so many girlfriends past following me around. Lifelong voluntary celibacy seemed like a good option. Unless I didn’t get that far. Perhaps whoever they were to me would all crumble away, bit by bit, until I didn’t even know I’d forgotten them.

The jostling party organism swilled me around in its mouth and spat me out in the kitchen, where I poured myself a large drink from the bottle at the back of the freezer even though it was cheap Tesco Value vodka tonight.

“Ahhh!” a girl from my English class, Laura, screamed in my direction, though the sound was mostly swallowed up by the music. She embraced me, sloshing half her drink on the floor. We never really spoke much aside from usual class chitchat. She was tipsy but not completely wasted. Her words tumbled out, slippery on her tongue, but her eyes were focused.

“How are you?” she sang. “I heard you got, like . . . all the points? That’s wild!”

I didn’t tell her that I had a lot of time to study when I had no real friends and nothing else to do.

“What about you?” I asked.

“Average. I did good in maths but it was ordinary level. I got what I needed.”

I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to make excuses. That my grades didn’t mean I thought she was stupid because she didn’t get them too. I thought it would come out patronizing so I asked her what she was going to study instead.

“Animation. I had to submit a portfolio. That mattered more than my grades.”

I didn’t even know she liked to draw. Of course, there was no reason why I would.

“What about you?” she said.

“I don’t know.”