Twiggy: You told Joey that?

Barnaby Rudge: LMAO, kinda. She seemed fairly interested in it.

Twiggy: I'll bet! She'll be well pleased! That's what she wants! It's what she's wanted for ages!

Barnaby Rudge: Eh?

Twiggy: Ah. Just read your message just now again and read it wrong first time! Soz.

Barnaby Rudge: About me looking for a new girlfriend?

Twiggy: Yeah.

Barnaby Rudge: So why does Joey want me to get a new girlfriend?

Twiggy: She doesn't.

Barnaby Rudge: Yes she does. You just said.

Twiggy: Did I? Well, ignore that. I didn't mean it. I just read it wrong.

Barnaby Rudge: Eh? I don't understand, Twigs!

Twiggy: Forget it. My mistake.

Barnaby Rudge: No! Tell me!

Twiggy: There's nothing to tell you, BR!

Barnaby Rudge: You said, she'll be pleased. That's what she wants.

Twiggy: Yeah, she does.

Barnaby Rudge: I still don't understand!!

Twiggy: She wants YOU, BR. Joey wants you. She likes you.

Barnaby Rudge: I like her too, Twigs. She's kewl.

Twiggy: No, I mean, she LIKES you, you twit!! She'll never tell you, so I'm telling you for her.

I stared at the screen, my eyebrows sky high.

Barnaby Rudge: Likes as in...likes??

Twiggy: Yeah, you clot!

Barnaby Rudge: Wants as in...wants??

Twiggy: Yes!

Barnaby Rudge: How do you know?

Twiggy: She told me, idiot!

Barnaby Rudge: When?

Twiggy: When you were still with Fickle. She said she hated that you were with her, but she had to sit and watch it all unfold. Said it was awful.

Barnaby Rudge: And then she went out of her way to dig up some dirt on Fickle so that I'd finish with her? Is that it?

Twiggy: No!! It wasn't like that. She stepped back when you were with Fickle, let you get on with it. But when she saw that Fickle was making a fool of you, she said she had to step in.

Barnaby Rudge: That was big of her.

Twiggy: Don't be like that, BR. If you only knew the nights she's poured her heart out to me over you, you wouldn't be saying that. She likes you, BR, and she couldn't sit back and watch you get hurt.

Barnaby Rudge: That's crap. I don't believe you.

Twiggy: Believe it, BR.

Barnaby Rudge: The only reason Joey told me about Fickle is 'cos she'd been dumped by Claire and couldn't stand to see me happy. And now she's telling you she likes me to, shit, I dunno, to justify it.

Twiggy: That's bollocks and you know it.

There was a pause. Then: Twiggy: I got something for you, gonna e-mail it to you, okay?

I waited while Twiggy went quiet, then flicked up my e-mail in-box and opened a message that she'd just sent me. It was dated from around six weeks ago; the time when she first told me about Fickle. My eyes flickered over the message, picking out certain sentences: I really like her, Twiggy. Have done for a while but I gotta keep it to myself 'cos she's so wrapped up with this Fickle kid that if I start declaring words of love to her now it's gonna totally pickle her head, isn't it? And I figure Immy's head's pickled enough already without me jumping in with my bloody great size nine feet (except that I'm only size six LOL). So what can I do? Just say nothing to Immy about the fact I think she's the best thing since sliced bread and that I can't stop thinking about her, and let her figure things out with Fickle for herself? I just dunno, Twiggy, and it's doing my bloody head in!

Then another one, dated a bit later: So, I dunno what to do, Twiggy. It's like, she's with this girl and this girl's making an idiot of her with some other chick, and do I tell Immy or not? And I've, like, spent sleepless nights wondering just what the hell to do and the only thing I can come up with is to tell Immy, however much it's gonna crush her.

Barnaby Rudge: So?

Twiggy: All the times you were busy with Fickle, Joey would be telling me on MSN how much it hurt her, but that she was happy as long as you were happy. She left you to it, BR. She could have made something up about Fickle if she'd wanted to break you two up, but Joey's not like that. Even you know that.

I suddenly felt like I'd been stung. The thing was, I did know that. The one thing that was a dead certainty was that Joey wasn't devious. She was wise, she was sensible, she was nice; she certainly wasn't sly or malicious in any way.

Barnaby Rudge: I know that, yeah.

Twiggy: But then when Fickle started all this up with this LisaD person, Joey said she couldn't sit back and ignore things any more.

Barnaby Rudge: Sounds like Joe.

Twiggy: You know as well as I do that Joey's nice to the core. She isn't Fickle, BR. Don't tar her with the same brush 'cos Joey's a million times nicer and better than Fickle.

Barnaby Rudge: I know.

I did. I knew.

Twiggy: So, BR, you see as one door shuts, another one opens. Must be nice to be so popular!!

Barnaby Rudge: But I've never thought of Joey as anything more than a friend, Twigs. It'd be too weird-it'd be, I dunno, like shagging my own sister! LOL.

Twiggy: Oh right! Well, uh, don't go telling Joey that, will you? In fact, in hindsight, probably best not to say anything at all to her, yeah?

Barnaby Rudge: I kinda wish you hadn't told me, Twigs.

Twiggy: I s'pose I just wanted you to know that Joey had her reasons for doing what she did.

Barnaby Rudge: I hope this won't make things awkward with me and her now.

Twiggy: It doesn't have to, BR. Just carry on as you were and pretend I never said anything.

Barnaby Rudge: I think I'm gonna go now, Twigs. I think I need to process all this!

Twiggy: Sure thing. Hey, BR, just don't say anything to Joey. I don't know whether she wants you to know she likes you. She figures you're still raw over Fickle and you don't need any more hassle.

Barnaby Rudge: I won't tell her, I promise! See ya.

Twiggy: Cya, BR.

I logged off and headed downstairs, kinda in a daze. Joey was nice, yeah, and I liked her-I liked her a lot-but she was, well, she was Joey. Funny, silly, dependable Joey. Always there for me with her gags and wise words and chickeroos...but she was Joey! I knew I could never go there! Why did life have to be so bloody complicated sometimes?

I managed to avoid speaking to Joey for the next few days, in part because of the amount of work I'd been given from college, but primarily because I didn't really know what to say to her. Twiggy blurting out to me that Joey liked me had thrown me into a bit of a spin and I figured the best way out of it was to do what any other pickle-headed person would do-ignore it and hope that it went away.

I met Beth and Emily most days either in the college canteen or in the pub across from the college, Beth always careful to not come with Matt because, as she told me, "It would be, like, toooo weird, don't you think?"

I had to agree. Matt, of course, never knew anything about Fickle or my coming out to Beth and Emily, and I'd been eternally grateful to Beth in particular for never telling him. I'd asked her specifically once I'd come out to her not to tell him. I figured the guy had had enough shit from me without finding out that he'd been dating a gay girl once.

"Now, this we have to go to!" Emily said one particularly noisy Friday lunchtime in the pub, which was crammed to the rafters with students, giddy with excitement that the weekend had finally arrived.

She pushed the free paper she'd been reading across the table to me and tapped her finger on an advert in the bottom right hand corner of the page.

Singles Night at The Porter, the advert read. Get your glad rags on, boys and girls, and come and meet the person of your dreams.

"The Porter's where we were the other week, isn't it?" I looked up at Emily.

"Sure is." Emily grinned back. "You up for it?"

I thought for a second.

"Could meet the woman of your dreams, Immy," Beth said. "Says so in the advert, right there."

"I'm too shy to go on my own!" I laughed, picking up my glass and taking a large slug from it.

"We'll come with you, won't we, Em?" Beth winked mischievously at Emily.

"Try and stop us!" Emily giggled.

"But you two'll be like a pair of wallflowers all night," I said.

"Ah, but we can also check out the talent for you," Beth replied, picking up her glass and taking a drink, looking playfully at me over the rim.

"I dunno..." I started.

"Don't give me 'I dunno', missy!" Emily interrupted. "You're never going to find Miss Right just sitting at home night after night, are you?"

"S'pose not," I said, trying not to sound too sullen.

"And you want to get this Gemma girl out of your system once and for all, don't you?" Beth nudged me playfully.

"She's already out of my system," I said, suddenly thinking of Joey, for some bizarre reason.

"Then it's decided." Emily clapped her hands. "Next Saturday, the Porter, you, me, and Beth, deal?"

I nodded reluctantly. Did I have any choice in the matter?

It was all very well, me ignoring Joey, but of course, she had no idea that I knew she fancied me, and as far as she was concerned, things were just as they'd always been between us. She carried on texting me and e-mailing me, even though I didn't always reply, and although I felt like a complete cow ignoring her, the truth was, I didn't know how else to handle it. Looking back, yeah, I handled it badly, but at the time, it seemed the only thing to do.

By the fourth night of blocking her out, she finally rang me. I was up in my room, my head stuck in one of my maths textbooks, trying to work out some stupid formula that, no matter how many times I looked at it, just refused to make sense. I saw her name flashing up on my mobile and my finger hovered over the Off button, but something inside me told me I couldn't ignore her forever.

"Hi, Joey," I said, speaking kinda warily, which was dumb. This was Joey, after all.

"Hey, chick," Joey's familiar cheery voice sounded. "You okay?"

"Oh you know," I said, "same old. How about you?"

"Yeah, not bad." Joey paused. "You've been quiet lately. Everything all right?"

"Just busy, thassall," I said, and it was kinda the truth. "College work, stuff like that."

"Right..." Joey's voice trailed off.

"Up to my eyes in it," I said, trying to justify myself.

"Not out on the pull every night, then?" Joey laughed.

"No." I laughed back. Then: "Going this weekend, though."

I winced after I'd said it. Why had I told Joey that? There was silence on the end of the phone.

"Oh, right," Joey finally said, sounding quieter than before.

I didn't really know what to say to Joey after that, which was ridiculous. In the time that I'd known her, I'd never been short of anything to say to her, but here I was now, struggling to find two words to say.