‘Lust,’ Tash says. ‘That was lust. I’m surprised you didn’t recognise it.’ She pulls her hair back into a ponytail then lets it drop down her back. ‘Actually, no I’m not.’

‘But I was in his interview! I thought he was nice and everything – and obviously he’s nice-looking – but I didn’t… you know.’

We’re back at my flat. It was easy enough to let myself out of the office and walk home, and Tash came over straight from work.

‘Get the horn?’ Tash says, from the other end of the sofa. ‘That’s ’cos you’re a professional.’

‘No, I didn’t even think of it. Honestly.’

‘You must’ve done. I think of it with every man I ever see.’

‘You do not.’ I stare at her.

‘Of course I do! I look at their lips and wonder whether they’re good kissers. I look at their fingers and wonder whether they know how to use them…’

‘Everyone, though? Not just men you fancy?’

‘No, everyone.’

‘You’ve met my dad!’

Tash snorts with laughter. ‘He’s got lovely hands, your dad.’

‘Oh my god! You are sick and wrong!’

‘I’m serious though. I mean, not about your dad.’ She raises an eyebrow in my direction. ‘This is normal behaviour. Fancying someone isn’t something to freak out about. Honestly. You’ve just forgotten what it’s like because of Max.’

‘But I fancied Max!’ I say, although I’m wondering if that’s really true. And he still hasn’t returned any of my calls, the dick.

‘Did you, though?’ Tash says. ‘Really?’

She gives me that look again. She knows me too well. It’s annoying. I try to think. I did fancy him, I’m sure. At first. A bit. Enough.

‘Did your loins burn when you saw him naked?’ she says dramatically.

‘Um, no. Wouldn’t that mean I had cystitis?’

‘Did you want to rip his clothes off?’

‘Only when he’d spilled stuff on them.’

Tash laughs. ‘Seriously, though. Did you ever think “God, I just have to have you right now?”’

‘No. When we did it, I enjoyed it. Mostly. But I was never gagging for it.’

‘Yeah, you see, that’s the problem.’

‘I don’t think it’s normal, though, is it? That level of… interest?’

She wrinkles her nose while she thinks. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think that level of disinterest is normal, though. You should want each other.’

‘You and Rob want each other, but you still want other people.’

‘Yeah. Sometimes. So?’

‘So I don’t get it. If you fancy each other so much, and you like each other… You do, don’t you?’

She nods.

‘Well then, why sleep with other people?’

She shrugs. ‘Because I like it. It’s exciting. The one thing you lose when you commit to someone is the first times. First kiss, first touch, first sex. I love all of that. And I don’t want to lose it. As long as me and Rob are both cool with it, what’s the problem?’

‘But are you both cool with it? I don’t know how you could be. Don’t you get jealous?’

‘Yeah. But that works too. It turns me on when he tells me about stuff he’s done with some other woman.’

‘God, really?’ I try to imagine Max telling me about shagging some other woman and me actually liking it. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘No, I know you don’t. And that’s okay, I don’t expect you to. But I still think you should expect more than you had with Max. What was your first kiss like with him?’

‘I don’t remember it,’ I say. ‘I was drunk.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Okay. So how about… did you ever feel about Max the way you felt about Alex today?’

I think back to the way I felt after Alex left the archive room. My legs were trembling, my belly was doing a weird hot melting thing and there was a sort of twanging in a… place. I couldn’t even focus on looking for the files, I just got the pen drive from my desk and legged it out of there.

‘No.’

‘There you go!’ Tash says. ‘You need to shag him. Perfect rebound sex.’

‘I think you’re forgetting something.’

‘Yeah, not now, obviously. Although invisible sex might be hot…’ She stares into space.

‘Tash!’

‘Yeah sorry. I mean once you’re back to your corporeal form… or whatever the expression is.’

‘If he’s interested.’

‘Well yeah, obviously, but you could make him interested.’

‘Could I?’

‘Seriously, you’re a grown woman. You’ve had boyfriends, you’ve had sex, you just need to… do it better. Expect more. Of them and of yourself.’

‘How?’

‘You need to practice. You know. On your own. That works. ’Specially now Max has gone. Do stuff you like. And if you don’t know what you like, work it out. Buy some smutty books. Or watch some stuff online. Really think about it. And don’t worry if it’s weird or kinky. No one can see you anyway. Perfect time to find your, you know, Sex Mojo.’

‘Hmm,’ I say.

I tip my head back and look up at the ceiling. I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about that. What I want, I mean. That can’t be true. I must have done. But I can’t remember. With Max it was always pretty much the same. And the men I slept with before too. Bit of nipple-bothering, quick fiddle about to see if I was ready and then it was all about them. Fuck.

‘You know what I just realised?’ I say, deciding to file the bad sex away to think about some other time.

Tash quirks an eyebrow at me.

‘I’ve never had a proper first kiss sober.’

She frowns. ‘Seriously?’

I nod. ‘I don’t remember most of them. I absolutely haven’t had the whole romance novel “his hands on my face, he looked into my eyes, our lips touched” thing.’

‘Fuck me,’ she says. ‘That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, it’s not always like that – I’ve had first kisses that were messy and our teeth bashed together or it was too hard… I split some guy’s lip once – but they’ve all been memorable, at least.’

‘I’m starting to wonder if I’ve actually wanted to kiss any of the men I’ve kissed,’ I say quietly.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Tash says. ‘I need more wine.’

‘Do you want to stay over again tonight?’ I ask, getting up to go and get another bottle.

‘I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly,’ she says, grinning.

‘Piss off,’ I say, laughing. ‘I just meant… Rob’s still away, right? Or have you got plans with someone else?’

‘I was thinking about maybe seeing Liam, but I can totally just sext him, he’ll love that.’

I walk out to the kitchen, come back with the wine and top up both of our glasses. Tash shuffles up the sofa towards me and turns her phone around, holding the screen up in front of my face. There’s a photo and at first I can’t see what it is, but then—

‘Oh my GOD, Tash!’

‘Nice, innit?’

‘Why? Why would you show me that?’

‘If you’re going to start dating again, you need to know your way around a dick pic.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I can get him to send a video later, if you want.’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I tell her. ‘You should go home. Or maybe to church.’

Tash smirks. ‘You know, this could be just what you’ve needed all along.’

‘What?’

She wafts her hands in my direction. ‘You know. Your predicament.’

‘Being invisible is what I’ve needed all along?’

Tash sighs and rolls over, looking up at the ceiling. ‘You’ve always sort of felt invisible anyway, right?’

Now I sigh too. ‘Right.’

‘So now you really are, you’re free. To do whatever you want. You don’t know how long it’s going to last, so go mad. Live on the edge. Diddle yourself into next week.’

‘You’ve got such a way with words.’

Tash grins. ‘That’s why I’m in PR, baby!’

‘You know what I need to do?’ I say later, when we’ve finished the second bottle of wine. Tash has started on the third and even though I’ve switched to water, my words aren’t coming out of my mouth quite as clearly as they should be. ‘I need to kill that pitch.’

‘Yesssss!’ she says, swinging her wine glass towards me, the wine almost but not quite sloshing over the top. ‘You totally will. You’re so good!’

‘But how can I?’ I ask. ‘I mean, I’m invisible.’

Tash nods, her face suddenly serious. ‘You are. Invisible. But you probably won’t always be.’

‘Probably,’ I say.

‘So if you’re not invisible then you’ll be able to do it.’

‘Or maybe not,’ I say. ‘’Cos it’s hard.’

‘Lots of things are hard,’ Tash says. ‘That’s no reason not to even try.’

‘No,’ I say. But I’m thinking, Isn’t it?

‘And you can do it, of course you can. You’re so brilliant. You should be doing more than you are! Everyone knows that.’

‘You always say that,’ I tell her. ‘But it’s not true.’

‘It is!’ she says, slamming her glass down on the coffee table. The wine jumps up and settles back down again. ‘I don’t know why you’re thinking it’s not. I don’t know why you always think you’re…’ She stops. Frowns.

‘What?’ I say. I have no idea what the end of that sentence is going to be.

‘Not enough,’ she says. ‘Not good enough.’

‘I don’t,’ I say, but my voice is quiet.

‘You do. Not good enough for a better job. Not good enough for a better relationship. Not good enough for…’ She picks up her wine again and finishes the glass. ‘University,’ she says.

I drink some more of my own wine. It’s funny, we never talk about that any more. Or maybe it’s not funny, it’s just understandable because it was ten years ago. But she used to ask me about it a lot. And then she stopped.

‘I just… it was so much harder than I’d expected it to be,’ I say.

‘But why?’ she says. She’s leaning towards me, a cushion cuddled against her stomach, and she looks genuinely concerned.

‘Because…’ I look at the bottle of wine and wonder if I could have more. I want more. I pour another glass. ‘Because you weren’t there.’ I close my eyes.

‘Ah, love,’ she says.

She drops her head down on my shoulder, slightly head-butting me in the jaw, but I don’t say.

‘I just wanted to get away. From home. From my parents. But it would’ve been so much more fun with you.’

‘It wasn’t all bad, right?’ Tash says. ‘Uni?’

I close my eyes. The main thing I picture when I think of university is of me, alone, in my sad room in Halls. Or my sad room in the house I shared with a group of girls I had nothing in common with. It was the hardest three years of my life.

‘I wish I hadn’t had to do it on my own,’ I say now.

‘I always worried,’ Tash says, looking down into her glass. ‘I always worried that I made it harder for you.’

‘What?’

‘That I made it harder for you to go to uni. I mean, you said you wanted to go, but I was all “oh no, come to London with me, it’ll be fun!” And so that made it so much harder for you. Did I?’

I shake my head. ‘No. God. Tash! No. I mean, you did say that.’

We both laugh.

‘But I wanted to go to uni. I just wanted to be in London with you at the same time. If I’d got into UCL it would’ve been fine.’ I shudder, remembering the horrible interview I’d had there.

Tash drops a hand from her glass and it lands on my shin. She jumps a bit, then smiles and slides it down to wrap around my ankle.

‘I wish I’d put London off and gone to uni with you,’ she says. ‘I wish you hadn’t hated it so much.’

‘Same,’ I say, even though at the time I told myself I needed to be away from her, out of her shadow, to find the real me. Turned out the real me was much, much happier in Tash’s shadow.

‘And at least we did live together for a little while,’ she says.

I nod. ‘Remember the wanker?’

Tash chokes on her wine and I have to wait out a coughing fit.

‘Oh my god,’ she says eventually. ‘Yeah. Horny little monkey.’

He lived above us and would start every single day with some self love. We’d hear the bed creaking and banging, followed by a groan and then the bathroom tap running. I could never quite meet his eye when we saw him in the pub.

‘That flat was a proper shithole,’ Tash says.

It really was. Small and cramped and beige and damp. But close to the Tube and not too expensive.

‘You’ve gone up in the world,’ Tash says, holding her arms out to gesture at my flat.

‘You too,’ I say and she nods.

‘We’re both really lucky.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘Apart from the whole invisibility thing.’

‘Yeah,’ Tash says. ‘Apart from that.’