Diana was mesmerising, from her long hair and full, pink lips to her ideas on the world, her love of expressionism, her sense of injustice at the world in which they lived – social inequality, gender inequality, racial inequality. She made Lydia feel ashamed that she hadn’t been taking enough notice of what was going on in the world around her and Lydia wanted to do better, to understand it all more and try to make sense of it. Despite Lydia’s naivety, Diana wanted to hear her opinions and she finally felt like someone saw her, cared what she thought, listened to her when she spoke.

The first time they met was just before Diana came for dinner. Lydia had been in the square. She needed to pop into Helen’s shop for a spare key because she’d left hers at home. She had been looking down at her phone, more messages from those bitches at school blowing up her Snapchat, and she had walked straight into Diana.

When she looked up, her stomach flipped like she was in an elevator. Diana had been annoyed at first, then pretty cool about it. She said she recognised Lydia, that she was a friend of Mills and they had made small talk before Diana had sauntered away. Lydia had watched her go, feeling like she had been sprinkled with fairy dust.

Then Diana turned up at the house with Matt. They had chatted a little at the table, literally bumped into each other again later in the corridor outside Matt’s room. Diana had quipped that they had to stop running into each other and Lydia had heard herself laugh like it was the funniest joke in the world and wanted to die of embarrassment at how lame she sounded.

Lydia had been carrying a copy of Lord of the Flies that she had to read for school and they got talking about it, right there in the hallway. Eventually Matt had got annoyed and stole Diana away again, but after that Lydia couldn’t stop thinking about her, started casually being around whenever Diana came over, until eventually Diana was coming over to spend time with Lydia and not Matt.

She wasn’t sure what was going on between Matt and Diana now, but she knew they didn’t talk much. Matt was still obsessed with her by the sounds of it, constantly phoning, messaging and pestering Diana at college. Diana had explained to Lydia that she was bi and Lydia thought it must be so nice to be that secure in yourself, able to be confidently fluid, letting yourself feel what you wanted to feel without adhering to societal constructs and stereotypes. Even so, she had asked Lydia to keep their relationship a secret as Matt wouldn’t understand and Lydia was fine with that. She wanted this all to herself anyway.