‘David wasn’t the one, Dee. He was lovely, but you know –’

‘No, I don’t know. I don’t know what it is you’re holding out for. David was decent and kind, plus he still has all his own hair,’ Dee glances across at me, her eyebrows knitted in concern. ‘I want you to be happy, to have someone to share your life with.’

‘I have you guys!’

‘Yeah, but Neil and I are leaving London in a few months,’ Dee sighs, ‘and Vanya, well, Vanya is a bad influence.’

‘I’m not a bad influence – I’m the fun one!’ Vanya says, raising her arms above her head to do a seat dance, as though this will illustrate just how fun she is. To be fair, Vanya is the fun one. On a night out, she will be the person to suggest getting shots at 2 a.m., but it will be Dee who holds your hair back when you’re throwing up in the loo later.

‘I worry with all the stuff you’re doing for the website; seeking out these crazily romantic tales, plus with your parents’ story –’ Dee nods to my hand which is toying with my pendant again – ‘it’s made your expectations a little … unrealistic.’

‘Look, I wouldn’t say I’m being especially picky. I just want a man who is kind, charming, well dressed, well read, ideally musical, someone who likes the same things as me, no one too complicated. Is that really too much to ask?’

‘On dating apps it is,’ says Vanya.

Dee reaches a hand across the car to squeeze mine. ‘I think you have to start factoring in the statistics.’

As teenagers, while I had posters of Busted and Avril Lavigne above my bed, Dee decorated her walls with the Periodic Table and a photo of Albert Einstein. She’s the Monica to my Rachel, but it works, I’ve often been the beneficiary of her practical nature. When Mum died, Dee was the one who kept me upright when all I wanted to do was lie down and sink into grief. She ordered the funeral flowers because I couldn’t get the words out over the phone; she moved in with me for a month, because I didn’t want to be alone. She was Ariadne’s thread, leading me out of a dark labyrinth. But now, two years later, I catch her looking at me through this lens of fragility, as though I might still break at any moment. I yearn for our old dynamic, where we laugh and tease each other, where we are equals again and I am not the frailer half who needs parenting by a friend.

‘Dee, I know I’m talking to a maths teacher here, but not everything in life boils down to maths,’ I say, with a smile.

‘You have to believe in a little magic when it comes to matters of the heart,’ says Vanya.