“Fern’s my best friend in the world,” she told Heather, as we piled into various taxis to take us into town. It was the first time she’d spoken to any of the girls. “You get her on loan, you understand?”

I laughed, almost awkwardly, while Heather smiled, raising both eyebrows at me as Jessica struggled to get into the car.

Time blurred once we got to Vodka Revolution. Everyone ordered planks of different flavored shots, and, after my third or fourth, I stopped babysitting Jessica, and let myself enjoy the night. She was on shot five or six, and sat next to me, looking bored and bewildered, as we all had conversations she couldn’t join in with.

“Oh my God, the medics bar crawl. Do you remember when Joe was sick on Pete’s head?”

“It was funnier because they were both dressed as giraffes from Noah’s Ark.”

“Look! Over there! It’s Creepy Chris from Freshers’ Week.”

I laughed, the table laughing with me. And with the music so loud, and the city still so new and exciting, and with my new friendships still needing a lot of work to be fully forged, there wasn’t space for Jessica that night. I’d made a mistake inviting her. I didn’t want to miss one second of bonding with this new group of people. They were still shiny and new and exciting, whereas Jessica was drinking too much and not being friendly, when I knew she could be. Why couldn’t she embrace my new life? Try with my new friends? Why was she determined to drag me back into the role of Old Fern, from home? I started to feel a bit resentful. I’d cleaned myself up in Manchester, and I’d been able to bloom away from Jessica’s shadow. I wasn’t awful. I tried. I kept asking her if she was OK. I tried to explain the background details of stories we were sharing, so she’d understand them. But, as we all got drunker, I admit I probably did go twenty minutes just chatting with my new friends, telling myself Jessica would be having a good time, that she was capable of making small talk...ignoring the fact that all of us were still socially-anxious freshers, who didn’t want to be lumbered with this random drunk girl from Fern’s hometown, no matter how pretty she was.

“Remember the traffic light party?”

“When that boy, Roger, wore brown, because he didn’t know if he was ready to cheat on his girlfriend from home yet?”

“What a gent.”

A girl sat next to me who I recognized from lectures.

“Do you do Creative Writing too? Oh my God, isn’t our lecturer the best? We should totally get coffee after our next lecture. That’s great.”