‘Oh my God, Georgia, why are you – what’s wrong?’

Rooney collapsed on to her knees in front of me and stared at the tears flowing out of my eyes.

Pip had cried in front of me dozens of times. It didn’t take much to set her off. Often it had been warranted, but sometimes she cried just because she was tired. Or that one time she cried because she made a lasagne and then dropped it on the floor.

Jason had cried in front of me a few times. Only when really bad things happened, like when he realised how horrible Aimee was to him, or we watched really sad movies about old people, like The Notebook and Pixar’s Up.

Rooney had cried in front of me a few times too. When she first told me about her ex. Outside Pip’s door. And when we moved the beds together.

I’d never cried in front of her.

I’d never cried in front of anyone.

‘Why … are you … here …?’ I managed to stammer out in between heaving breaths. I didn’t want her to see me like this. God, I didn’t want anyone to see me.

‘I could ask you the same thing!’ She dropped the flowers on the ground and placed her Starbucks cup carefully on the footpath, then sat down next to me on the grass. I realised she was wearing different clothes from last night – she was now in different leggings and a sweatshirt. When had she gone back to our room to change? Had I slept through her coming back?

She wrapped an arm round me.

‘I thought … you were … in the river,’ I said.

‘You thought I’d fallen in the river and died?’

‘I d-don’t know … I was scared …’

‘I’m not dumb, I don’t just go around jumping in rivers.’

I looked at her. ‘You frequently stay at strangers’ houses.’

Rooney pursed her lips. ‘OK.’

‘You locked yourself out of college at five a.m.’

‘OK. Maybe I’m a bit dumb.’

I wiped my face, feeling a little calmer. ‘Why was your phone here?’

She paused. ‘I … walk out here sometimes. After nights out. Well … usually the mornings after. I just like coming out here and … feeling like everything’s calm.’

‘You never told me.’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t think anyone would really care about it. It was just my thing that I did to clear my head. So I came out here this morning and at some point I dropped my phone, and I didn’t realise until I was all the way back at college – you must have already left by that point – so I just got changed and ran back here and … now we’re both here.’

She still had her arm round me. We stared out at the river.

‘Did Pip tell you what happened?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’ I tapped my foot against hers. ‘Why’d you run?’

She let out a deep breath. ‘I’m … very scared of … getting close to people. And … last night, with Pip, I …what we did – well, what we were about to do, I-I just started to think that I was doing what I normally did. Having sex to just … detach myself from feeling anything real.’ She shook her head. ‘But I wasn’t. I realised almost as soon as I left. I realised I … it would have been the first time with someone I actually … cared about. With someone who cared about me too.’

‘She’s really worried about you,’ I said. ‘Maybe we should get back.’

Rooney turned to me.

‘You were really worried about me too, weren’t you?’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen you cry before.’

I clenched my teeth, feeling the tears welling up again. This was why I didn’t cry in front of people – when I started, it took me ages to stop.

‘What’s going on?’ she said. ‘Talk to me.’

‘I …’ I looked down. Ididn’t want her to see me. But Rooney was looking at me, eyebrows furrowed, so many thoughts churning behind her eyes, and it was that look that made me start spilling everything out. ‘I just care about you so much … but I’ve always got this fear that … one day you’ll leave. Or Pip and Jason will leave, or … I don’t know.’ Fresh tears fell from my cheeks. ‘I’m never going to fall in love, so … my friendships are all I have, so … I just … can’t bear the idea of losing any of my friends. Because I’m never going to have that one special person.’

‘Can you let me be that person?’ Rooney said quietly.

I sniffed loudly. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘I mean I want to be your special person.’

‘B-but … that’s not how the world works, people always put romance over friendships –’

‘Says who?’ Rooney spluttered, smacking her hand on the ground in front of us. ‘The heteronormative rulebook? Fuck that, Georgia. Fuck that.’

She stood up, flailing her arms and pacing as she spoke.

‘I know you’ve been trying to help me with Pip,’ she began, ‘and I appreciate that, Georgia, I really do. I like her and I think she likes me and we like being around each other and, yep, I’m just gonna say it – I think we really, really want to have sex with each other.’

I just stared at her, my cheeks tear-stained, having no idea where this was going.

‘But you know what I realised on my walk?’ she said. ‘I realise that I love you, Georgia.’

My mouth dropped open.

‘Obviously I’m not romantically in love with you. But I realised that whatever these feelings are for you, I …’ She grinned wildly. ‘I feel like I am in love. Me and you – this is a fucking love story! I feel like I’ve found something most people just don’t get. I feel at home around you in a way I have never felt in my fucking life. And maybe most people would look at us and think that we’re just friends, or whatever, but I know that it’s just … so much MORE than that.’ She gestured dramatically at me with both hands. ‘You changed me. You … you fucking saved me, I swear to God. I know I still do a lot of dumb stuff and I say the wrong things and I still have days where I just feel like shit but … I’ve felt happier over the past few weeks than I have in years.’

I couldn’t speak. I was frozen.

Rooney dropped to her knees. ‘Georgia, I am never going to stop being your friend. And I don’t mean that in the boring average meaning of ‘friend’ where we stop talking regularly when we’re twenty-five because we’ve both met nice young men and gone off to have babies, and only get to meet up twice a year. I mean I’m going to pester you to buy a house next door to me when we’re forty-five and have finally saved up enough for our deposits. I mean I’m going to be crashing round yours every night for dinner because you know I can’t fucking cook to save my life, and if I’ve got kids and a spouse, they’ll probably come round with me, because otherwise they’ll be living on chicken nuggets and chips. I mean I’m going to be the one bringing you soup when you text me that you’re sick and can’t get out of bed and ferrying you to the doctor’s even when you don’t want to go because you feel guilty about using the NHS when you just have a stomach bug. I mean we’re gonna knock down the fence between our gardens so we have one big garden, and we can both get a dog and take turns looking after it. I mean I’m going to be here, annoying you, until we’re old ladies, sitting in the same care home, talking about putting on a Shakespeare because we’re all old and bored as shit.’

She grabbed the bunch of flowers and practically threw them at me.

‘And I bought these for you because I honestly didn’t know how else to express any of that to you.’

I was crying. I just started crying again.

Rooney wiped the tears off my cheeks. ‘What? Don’t you believe me? Because I’m not fucking joking. Don’t sit there and tell me I’m lying because I’m not lying. Did any of that make sense?’ She grinned. ‘I am extremely sleep-deprived right now.’

I couldn’t speak. I was a mess.

She gestured at the bunch of flowers, which had pretty much exploded in my lap. ‘I really wanted to do some grand gesture like you did for Pip and Jason but I couldn’t think of anything because you’re the brains in this friendship.’

That made me laugh. She wrapped her arms round me, and then I was just half laughing, half crying, happy and sad at the same time.

‘Don’t you believe me?’ she asked again, holding me tight.

‘I believe you,’ I said, my nose all bunged up and my voice croaky. ‘I promise.’