Joanne had been my best friend forever. It started at primary school, where we’d been paired up on that first day, me choking back the sobs of abandonment, her laughing and twirling her ponytail between her fingers. Even when we were five, she was everything I wasn't - clever, pretty, able to do a cartwheel when I could barely manage a forward roll. She had a Charlie’s Angels lunchbox, and I nagged my mum to get me one. One finally appeared under the Christmas tree that year, but when I proudly walked into school with it at the start of term, Joanne had upgraded hers to a Bay City Rollers one. It set the stage for a childhood spent one step behind. She got the role of the Virgin Mary in the school nativity the year I was a camel. She came first in high jump at sports day, whereas I bumbled along in last place in the sack race. I didn’t care though, our addiction to Smash Hits magazine and Hubba Bubba bubblegum (she always blew the biggest bubbles) were just some of the things that kept up permanently Best Friends Forever. We moved onto secondary school, where she was the first to get a bra, her period, Boots 17 lip gloss, a Princess Di haircut, a love bite (which to this day I believe she did herself with the nozzle of her mums Hoover).

I trotted along quite happily in her shadow, watching her blossom into the coolest kid in the lower sixth. Thanks to her elevated status we got ourselves invited to THE party of the year, Richard Macnamara’s seventeenth birthday party. We spent weeks preparing for it, and when the night of the party finally arrived, we were blushered and backcombed to within an inch of our lives. I was rocking a Madonna inspired crop top and Joanne lent me a pair of dangly earrings in the shape of little plastic dice, which clattered gently against my neck whenever I flicked my hair. I had more reason than usual to be excited. I’d heard on the school grapevine that Paul Jenkins was going to rig spin the bottle so that he could kiss me. Me!! For all the things Joanne had done before me, snogging the face off an upper sixth boy was not one of them.

The party was in full swing when we arrived, Duran Duran blasting from the stereo, and we helped ourselves to plastic cups of White Lightning cider.The lounge was crowded, inebriated teenages lolling on Mrs Macnamara’s cream shagpile carpet, sharing a tray of hotdogs. Paul Jenkins was sitting with his legs stretched in front of him, his back against the white leather sofa. Seeing me, he smiled and gestured for me to sit next to him. I obliged, pulling my too short ra-ra skirt down to cover my thighs. He slipped his arm from the sofa and placed it around my shoulder. ‘Nice earings’ he said, as he leant in to kiss my neck. Before any contact with my skin was made, I heard Joanne’s voice booming above the music ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ Her cheeks were flushed, her pupils dilated thanks to the 20% proof cider. I must have looked confused, because she continued ‘Don't look all innocent, you bitch. Keep away from him’ She lurched at me, attempting to push me away from Paul. Paul grabbed her arm ‘Calm down, Joanne’ he said, but she pushed her face up against his ‘I thought you liked me,’ she spat ‘not her.’ Joanne grabbed a bottle of tomato ketchup from the tray of hotdogs and sprayed it all over Paul. And me. And Mrs Macnamara’s cream shagpile carpet.

Best friends forever? Those dice earrings turned my ears septic, and I never spoke to Joanne again.

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