They were an odd pairing – Ellen loud and chaotic, Alexa quieter and more contained – and always had been, but their relationship worked beautifully. They shared all the important things. They found the same jokes funny and the same people objectionable. They could communicate just with looks and raised eyebrows, and would always tell the other one when an outfit made them look like a rectangle. They had other friends at university – like Sophie – but their relationship existed as a separate, more meaningful entity. They fought with the security of siblings, knowing for certain that they were stuck with each other now.

They lived together first in two shared houses, in York and later in London, initially with strangers, then with Sophie in Camberwell, and latterly, at 49 Rokeby Close. After ten years, it felt extraordinary to think there had ever been a time when they had not known one another, or even slept under the same roof.

Many of their university friends had moved to the city and become unbearable: playing at real adulthood with their couples’ dinner parties; competitive WhatsApp messages about long working hours; and a near-uniform uptake of street food and barre classes. This meant that socializing with them was far less fun, because in order to do so, you might have to go to Covent Garden to listen to a long, meandering anecdote about LinkedIn. On the other hand, moving to London had not changed the DNA of Ellen and Alexa’s friendship at all. Granted, they had (very different) jobs now, but New Cross was suitably scruffy, bookended as it was by universities. Now, instead of long walks around their small university town, they walked up to the top of Telegraph Hill to admire the spires of the city.