It took half an hour to actually leave the pub. I did my rounds of hugging everyone goodbye, promising to stay in touch, swapping numbers with people I’d never really been friends with. Then we were free. Without saying it, I knew exactly where to take us. Up up up the giant hill, to the viewing spot. During the day it was packed with families clad in walking boots, bearing picnics and designer dogs. But, at night-time, the viewpoint car park was ours, and so was the view stretching out beneath us. I pulled up my hand brake and we smiled at one another. We’d been coming here at night ever since I passed my driving test. Jessica passed me a cigarette and we clambered out into the sticky September night, walking to the marble viewpoint. Our hometown sprawled out below us in a sea of orange blobs. She passed me her lighter and we started smoking, not saying anything as we stared out at it all, both of us aware of the huge cusp of change we were perched on. This town. All I’d ever known was this town. Whereas, tomorrow my parents would drive me for four hours up the M1 and spit me out in Manchester—a sprawling concrete mass of a city where nobody knew anything about me. If I kept my scars hidden, they’d never be able to guess who I’d been before. And Jessica wouldn’t be there... For the first time in years, my identity wouldn’t be linked to hers—endless comparisons where I fell always short. It was terrifying and wonderful to consider in equal measures.

“This town,” I said, breathing menthol smoke over the view.

“This fucking town.”

“I don’t know how I’d have survived it without you.”

She lay her head on my shoulder. “Ditto.”

We smoked our cigarettes into stubs. Reached into her packet and plucked out new ones. The thoughts we were having too big to be unaccompanied by cigarettes.

“I can’t believe that this time tomorrow I’m going to be there,” I said. “At university! What if nobody likes me?”

Jessica looked at her flip-flops. “Everyone will love you. People always do. You’ve always made friends so easily.”

“They won’t be you though.”

She batted the compliment away. “They’ll be nicer. Less complicated.”

“Shut up! You’re irreplaceable, Jessica.”

She finally looked up at that, met my eye, her face bathed in silver moonlight. “Really? You mean that?”

“Of course. Oh my God, the things we’ve been through together.”

Her pointed teeth shone as she smiled. “I mean, it’s going to take someone quite extraordinary to outdo the things we’ve done.”

“Nobody else has done a tap dance in a kebab shop, that much I know for sure.”