Magic was not what I found when I returned to my college room on the afternoon of January eleventh. What I found instead was most of Rooney’s possessions scattered around the floor, her wardrobe wide open, her bedsheets several metres away from her bed, Roderick a worrying shade of brown, and the aqua rug inexplicably crammed into the sink.

I had just unzipped my suitcase when Rooney entered wearing pyjamas, looked at me, looked at the rug in the sink, and said, ‘I spilled tea on it.’

She sat on her bed while I tidied her possessions, squeezed the water out of the rug, and even snipped most of the dead bits off Roderick. The photo of Mermaid-hair Beth had fallen on the floor again, so I just stuck it back on the wall, without saying anything about it, while Rooney watched, expressionless.

I asked about her Christmas, but the only thing she said was that she hated spending time in her home town.

Then she went to bed at seven o’clock.

So, yeah. Rooney was clearly not in a great place.

To be fair, I understood why. The play wasn’t going to happen. Her unspoken thing with Pip was not going to happen. The only thing she really had was – well, me, I guess.

Not a great consolation prize, in my opinion.

‘We should go out,’ I said to her at the end of our first week back at uni.

It was the early evening. She glanced at me over the top of her laptop screen, then continued what she was doing – watching YouTube videos. ‘Why?’

I was seated at my desk. ‘Because you like going out.’

‘I’m not in the mood.’

Rooney had made it to two of our six lectures that week. And when she had come, she had simply stared ahead, not even bothering to get her iPad out of her bag to take notes.

It was like she just didn’t care about anything any more.

‘We could … we could just go to a pub, or something?’ I suggested, sounding a little desperate. ‘Just for one drink. We could get cocktails. Or chips. We could get chips.’

This prompted an eyebrow raise. ‘Chips?’

‘Chips.’

‘I … would like some chips.’

‘Exactly. We could go to the pub, get some chips, get some fresh air, then come back.’

She looked at me for a long moment.

And then she said, ‘OK.’

The nearest pub was packed, obviously, because it was a Friday night in a university town. Thankfully we found a tiny beer-stained table in a back room and I left Rooney to guard it while I procured us a bowl of chips to share and a jug of strawberry daquiri with two paper straws.

We sat and ate our chips in silence. I actually felt very calm, considering the fact that I was technically on a ‘night out’. All around us were students dressed up for the evening, ready to spend a couple of hours in a bar before heading out to clubs later. Rooney was wearing leggings and a hoodie, while I was wearing joggers and a woolly jumper. We probably stuck out quite a lot, but compared to the hell of Freshers’ Week, I was extremely relaxed.

‘So,’ I said, after we’d sat in silence for over ten minutes. ‘I’ve been sensing that you are not having a great time right now.’

Rooney stared at me blankly. ‘I enjoyed the chips.’

‘I meant generally.’

She took a long sip from the jug.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Everything’s shit.’

I waited for her to open up about it, but she didn’t, and I realised I was going to have to pry.

‘The play?’ I said.

‘Not just that.’ Rooney groaned and leant over the table on one hand. ‘Christmas was hell. I … I spent most of it meeting up with my school friends and, like … he was always there.’

It took me a moment to realise who she meant by ‘he’.

‘Your ex-boyfriend,’ I said.

‘He ruined so many things for me.’ Rooney started stabbing the fruit in our cocktail jug with her straw. ‘Every time I see his face I want to scream. And he doesn’t even think he did anything wrong. Because of him, I – God. I could have been a much better person if I’d never met him. He’s the reason I’m like this.’

I didn’t know what to say to that. I wanted to ask her what happened, what he did, but I didn’t want to force her to revisit bad stuff if she didn’t want to.

There was a long silence after she spoke. By the time she spoke again, she had successfully skewered all of the fruit in the jug.

‘I really like Pip,’ she said in a very quiet voice.

I nodded slowly.

‘You knew?’ she asked.

I nodded again.

Rooney chuckled. She took another sip.

‘How come you know me better than anyone?’ she asked.

‘We live together?’ I said.

She just smiled. We both knew it was more than that.

‘So … what are you gonna do?’

‘Uh, nothing?’ Rooney scoffed. ‘She hates me.’

‘I mean … yes, but she misinterpreted the situation.’

‘We made out. There’s not much to misinterpret.’

‘She thinks that we’re a thing. That’s the reason she’s angry.’

Rooney nodded. ‘Because she thinks I’m taking you away from her.’

I almost groaned at the stupidity. ‘No, because she likes you back.’

The look on her face was like I’d taken a glass and smashed it over her head.

‘That’s – that’s just – you’re just wrong about that,’ she stammered, going a little red in the face.

‘I’m just saying what I see.’

‘I don’t want to talk about Pip any more.’

We fell into silence again for a few moments. I knew Rooney was smart about this sort of thing – I’d watched her effortlessly navigate relationships of all kinds since the first day I met her. But, when it came to Pip, she had the emotional intelligence of a single grape.

‘So you like girls?’ I asked.

The scowl on her face dropped. ‘Yeah. Probably. I dunno.’

‘Three wildly different answers to that question.’

‘I dunno, then. I guess … I mean, I questioned whether I liked girls a bit when I was younger. When I was thirteen, I had a crush on one of my friends. A girl. But like –’ she made a shrugging gesture ‘– all girls do that, right? Like, that’s common, having little crushes on your female friends.’

‘No,’ I said, trying not to laugh. ‘Nope. Not all girls do that. Example A.’ I gestured to myself.

‘Well. OK, then.’ She looked to one side. ‘I guess I like girls, then.’

She said it with such nonchalance, it was as if she’d realised her sexuality and come out in the space of about ten seconds. But I knew her better than that. She’d probably been figuring it out for a while. Just like I had.

‘Does that make me bi?’ she asked. ‘Or … pan? Or what?’

‘Whatever you want. You can think about it.’

‘Yeah. I guess I will.’ She was staring at the table. ‘You know, when we kissed … I think I did that because there’s always been this part of me who’s wanted to … um, you know. Be with girls. And you were just a safe option to try it out because I knew you wouldn’t hate me forever. Which was a really shit thing to do, obviously. God, I’m so sorry.’

‘It was a shit thing to do,’ I agreed. ‘But I can relate about accidentally using people because you’re confused about your sexuality.’

We’d both fucked up in a lot of ways. And while our sexuality confusion wasn’t an excuse, it was good that we both realised our mistakes.

Maybe that meant we’d make less of them going forward.

‘I never had any gay or bi friends at school,’ Rooney said. ‘I didn’t really know anyone openly gay, actually. Maybe I would have figured it out sooner if I had.’

‘My best friend has been out since she was fifteen, and it still took me years to figure myself out,’ I said.

‘True. Wow. Shit’s tricky.’

‘Yup.’

She snorted. ‘I’m at uni for three months and suddenly I’m not straight any more.’

‘Mood,’ I said.

‘Love that for us, I guess?’ she asked.

‘Love that for us,’ I agreed.

I got us a second cocktail jug – cosmopolitan – and nachos.

We were halfway through the jug when I told Rooney my plan.

‘I’m going to get Jason and Pip to come back to the Shakespeare Soc,’ I said.

Rooney crushed a particularly cheesy nacho into her mouth. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘You’re welcome to help me.’

‘What’s your plan?’

‘I mean … I haven’t got quite that far yet. There will probably be a lot of apologising involved.’

‘Terrible plan,’ said Rooney, chomping down on another nacho.

‘It’s all I have.’

‘And if it doesn’t work?’

If it didn’t work?

I didn’t know what would happen then.

Maybe that would be it for me, Jason and Pip. Forever.

We finished the nachos – it didn’t take long – and the cocktail jug, before heading towards the pub door, both of us feeling a little bit fuzzy. I was ready to sleep, honestly, but Rooney had fallen into a chatty mood. I was glad. Alcohol and chips definitely weren’t the healthiest solution to her problems, but she seemed a little happier, at least. Job done.

That mood lasted the thirty seconds it took us to get to the door, and then it was gone. Because standing just outside, surrounded by friends, was Pip Quintana herself.

For a brief moment, she didn’t see us. She’d had a hair trim, her curly fringe just meeting her eyebrows, and she was dressed up for a night out – stripy shirt, tight jeans, and a brown aviator jacket that made her look like one of the guys from Top Gun. With the bottle of cider in one hand, it was a look.

I could practically feel the wave of horror spill from Rooney as Pip turned round and saw us.

‘Oh,’ said Pip.

‘Hi,’ I said, having no idea what else to say.

Pip stared at me. Then her eyes flitted to Rooney – from her messy ponytail down to her mismatched bed socks.

‘What, on a date, or something?’ said Pip.

This immediately annoyed me. ‘Clearly we’re not on a date,’ I snapped. ‘I’m wearing joggers.’

‘Whatever. I don’t want to talk to you.’

She started to turn back round but froze as Rooney spoke.

‘You can be mad at me, but don’t be mad at Georgia. She’s done nothing wrong.’

This was absolutely untrue – Pip had heavily implied that she liked Rooney, and then I’d kissed Rooney anyway. Not to mention everything I’d done to Jason. But I appreciated the support.

‘Oh, fuck off with that taking-the-blame shit,’ Pip spat. ‘Since when are you suddenly trying to be a good person?’ She swung round so she could speak right to Rooney’s face. ‘You’re selfish, you’re nasty, and you don’t give a shit about other people’s feelings. So don’t come up to me and try to pretend to be a good person.’

Pip’s friends had all started murmuring, wondering what was going on. Rooney stepped forward, teeth gritted and nostrils flaring like she was about to start shouting, but she didn’t.

She just turned round and walked away down the street.

I stayed still, wondering whether Pip was going to say anything to me. She looked at me for a long moment, and I felt like my brain rushed through the entirety of our past seven years of friendship, every single time we’d sat next to each other in lessons, every sleepover and PE lesson and cinema trip, every time she’d cracked a joke or sent me a stupid meme, every single time I’d almost cried in front of her – didn’t, couldn’t, but almost.

‘I just can’t believe,’ she said, through an exhale. ‘I thought – I thought you cared about my feelings.’

Then she turned away too, rejoining a conversation with her new friends, and all of those memories smashed around me into tiny pieces.