Sunil held my hand all the way through Durham. In a slightly odd, but nonetheless comforting way, I felt like I was hanging out with one of my parents. I supposed, in a way, I was.

He didn’t seem to feel the need to talk. We just walked. Sometimes he would swing my hand. About halfway there, I wondered what I was doing. I wanted to be curled up in bed, reading the Jimmy/Rowan Spider-Man AU fanfic I’d started last night. I shouldn’t be at this formal. I didn’t deserve to be at this formal.

I needed to message Jason and explain.

I needed to explain what was wrong with me.

I needed to say sorry.

‘Here we are,’ said Sunil, smiling. We had reached a red door leading into one of Durham’s many old Dickensian buildings. I looked at the shop it was connected to.

‘Gregg’s?’

Sunil snorted. ‘Yes, Georgia. We’re having our society formal dinner at Gregg’s.’

‘I’m not complaining. I love sausage rolls.’

He opened the door, revealing a narrow corridor leading to a stairway and a sign: Big’s Digs: Restaurant and Bar.

‘We’ve rented out Big’s for the evening,’ said Sunil cheerfully, leading me up the stairs and into the restaurant. ‘The club nights are fine, obviously, but I insisted we have formals as well this year. Not everyone is into clubbing.’

It wasn’t a huge space, but it was a beautiful one. It was one of Durham’s old buildings, so the ceiling was low, adorned with wooden beams and soft, warm lighting. All the tables had been arranged in neat squares, laden with white tablecloths, candles, shiny cutlery and colourful centrepieces that featured all sorts of different pride flags – some I recognised, some I didn’t. A few multicoloured balloons hung from the corners of the room and streamers bordered the windows. Right at the back, overlooking the whole room, was a big rainbow flag.

‘Could have gone harder with the pride flags,’ Sunil said, narrowing his eyes. I couldn’t tell whether he was joking.

We weren’t alone in the room – there was a small gathering of people putting a few final touches on the decorations. I quickly spotted the other third year I met on the stall, Jess, although her braids were styled into an updo. She was wearing a dress with tiny dogs on it. She waved, skipped over to Sunil, and swung her arm round him.

‘Oh my God, finally,’ she said.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Good, actually. We’re just arguing about whether to do place cards or not.’

‘Hm. People will want to sit with their friends, though.’

‘That’s what I think. But Alex thinks that’ll cause chaos.’

They discussed place cards while I stood slightly behind Sunil, like a toddler behind their parent’s leg at a family gathering. The students setting up all appeared to be third years. Some were dressed in bright, quirky outfits – sequins, patterned suits and big heels – while others wore more ordinary dresses and tuxes. I felt entirely out of place in my overalls, no matter what Sunil had said.

‘Oh, and I’ve brought Georgia along to help set up,’ said Sunil, interrupting my thoughts. He gave me a squeeze round my shoulders.

Jess smiled at me. I felt a little panicked – was she going to ask why I was here? What was my sexuality? Why hadn’t I come to any of their other events?

‘Can you blow up balloons?’ she asked.

‘Um, yeah.’

‘Thank God, because I literally can’t, and Laura is moaning about doing it because she’s apparently got a cough.’ And then she handed me a packet of balloons.

Sunil had to go off to assist with the evening’s preparations, and I quickly started to feel like I’d made a terrible mistake by coming and that I was going to be forced into talking to a load of people I really didn’t know. But Jess seemed happy for me to tag along, working my way through the balloons, as she caught up with her friends and acquaintances, and I even got to know her a little, asking her about the orchestra and playing the viola and her friendship with Sunil.

‘I honestly did not have a real friend here until I met him,’ she said, after we’d finished tying up the last cluster of balloons. ‘We got sat next to each other at orchestra and we just immediately started gushing about what each other was wearing. And we’ve been glued at the hip ever since.’ She smiled, watching Sunil chatting to some timid-looking freshers. ‘Everyone loves Sunil.’

‘Well, he’s really nice, so that makes sense,’ I said.

‘Not just that, but he’s actually a really good president. He won the Pride Soc election by a landslide. Everyone was really fed up with the president last year – he didn’t want to use anyone else’s ideas except his own. Oh, speaking of.’ Jess hopped over to Sunil and quietly said, ‘Lloyd’s here. Just a heads-up.’ She pointed towards the entrance.

Sunil glanced towards the door where a skinny blond guy wearing a velvet tux was standing. An expression I hadn’t seen on Sunil before flashed across his features – annoyance.

Lloyd looked over to him, unsmiling, then walked away towards a table on the other side of the room.

‘Lloyd hates Sunil,’ said Jess, as Sunil rejoined his conversation with the group of freshers. ‘So, that’s a bit of a thing there.’

‘Drama?’ I asked.

Jess nodded. ‘Drama.’

For some reason – pity, or genuine kindness, I wasn’t sure – I ended up sitting next to Sunil at his table throughout the dinner. By eight o’clock, the room was packed and lively, and waiters were serving drinks and starters.

Between courses Sunil made an effort to move around the room and talk to people on every table, especially the freshers. The newbies seemed genuinely excited to meet him. It was sort of wonderful to watch.

I managed to chat a little to the other people on my table, but I was relieved when Sunil returned for dessert, and I could get to talk to him properly. He told me that he was studying music, which he thought was probably a mistake, but he was enjoying it. He was from Birmingham, which explained the very slight tinge in his accent, which I hadn’t been able to place. He had no idea what he was doing after Durham yet, despite this being the final year of his degree.

I told him about our Shakespeare Society and how it was probably going to be a disaster.

‘I did a little bit of acting when I was at school,’ said Sunil when I told him about us needing a fifth member. He launched into a story of the time he played a minor role in a school production of Wicked, and concluded it by saying, ‘Maybe I could be in your play. I do miss the theatre.’

I told him that would be amazing.

‘I’m so busy, though,’ he said. ‘I just … have a lot on all of the time.’ And judging by the tired expression on his face, he wasn’t exaggerating, so I told him it’d be OK if he couldn’t.

But he said he’d think about it.

I hadn’t met a lot of openly queer people before. There’d been a crowd of people at school who Pip hung out with from time to time, but there could only have been about seven or eight of them, max. I don’t know what I expected. There was no particular type of person, no particular style or look. But they were all so friendly. There were a few obvious friendship groups, but mostly, people were happy to chat to whoever.

They were all just themselves.

I don’t know how to explain it.

There was no pretending. No hiding. No faking.

In this little restaurant hidden away in the old streets of Durham, a bunch of queer people could all show up and just be.

I don’t think I’d understood what that was like until that moment.

After dessert, tables were moved to the side and the real mingling began. The lights were dimmed and the music was turned up, and almost everyone was standing, chatting, laughing and drinking. I quickly realised my socialising reserves had been utterly depleted by what had honestly felt like the longest day of my life, and I’d also drunk enough alcohol to be in that weird space where everything feels like a dream, so I found an empty seat in a corner and huddled there with my phone and a glass of wine for half an hour, scrolling through Twitter and Instagram.

‘Hiding in the corner, college child?’

I raised my head, startled, but it was only Sunil, a glass of lemonade in hand. He looked like a celebrity in his tux, his hair pushed neatly back. I supposed he was a celebrity here.

He sat down in the chair next to me. ‘How are you doing?’

I nodded at him. ‘Fine! Yeah. This has been really nice.’

He smiled and gazed out at the room. Happy people having fun. ‘Yes. It’s been a success.’

‘Have you organised anything like this before?’

‘Never. I was part of the society’s leadership team last year, but events like this weren’t my call. Last year it was literally all bar crawls and club nights.’

I grimaced. Sunil saw, and laughed. ‘Yeah. Exactly.’

‘Is it stressful? Being the president?’

‘Sometimes. But it’s worth it. Makes me feel that I’m doing something important. And that I’m part of something important.’ He let out a breath. ‘I … I did things on my own for a long time. I know how it feels to be totally alone. So now I’m trying to make sure … no queer person has to feel like that in this city.’

I nodded again. I could understand that.

‘I’m not a superhero, or anything. I don’t want to be. A lot of the freshers see me as this, like, queer angel sent down to fix all their problems, and I’m not, I’m really, really not. I’m just a person. But I like to think I’m making a positive impact, even if it’s a small one.’

I suddenly got the sense that Sunil had been through a lot before he’d become this person – confident, eloquent, wise. He hadn’t always been the self-assured president of a society. But whatever he’d been through, he’d done it. He’d survived. And he was making the world a better place.

‘But I’m very tired all the time,’ he said with a small chuckle. ‘I think sometimes I forget about … looking after myself. Just … bingeing a show or, I don’t know. Baking a cake. I hardly ever do stuff like that. Sometimes I wish I could spend a little more time just doing something utterly pointless.’ He met my eyes. ‘And now I’m oversharing!’

‘I don’t mind!’ I blurted. I really didn’t. I liked deep chats and I felt like I was getting to know Sunil properly. I knew that he, as my college parent, was supposed to be my mentor here at Durham, but I already wanted to know him better than that. I wanted us to be friends.

But that was when I heard the voice.

‘Georgia?’

I looked up, though I didn’t need to, because I knew the voice almost as well as my own.

Pip, wearing a black tux not dissimilar from Sunil’s, was staring down at me with a baffled expression.

‘What are you doing here?’