Nick and Charlie. Alice Oseman

      Nick puts his arm around me. ‘Okay, we need at least one picture together where we look fucking normal.’ He holds the camera up in front of us, the lens facing us, and I say, ‘Let’s be honest, we never look normal,’ and Nick laughs at me while I’m making sure my hair isn’t doing something weird, and then we both smile, and he takes the picture.

      ‘When I visit you at uni, I’m expecting that one framed,’ I say.

      ‘Only if you buy me a frame. I’ll have rent to pay.’

      ‘God, get a job.’

      ‘What? You mean you’re not going to buy me things now that you have a job? I can’t believe this. Why am I even in this relationship?’

      ‘I don’t even know, Nick. Why are you still here? It’s been over two years.’

      Nick just laughs and kisses me quickly on the cheek, then starts to walk backwards away towards the drinks table. ‘You’re nice to look at.’

      I give him the middle finger.

      When we first started going out, we didn’t tell people for a while. We didn’t really know how people would react to us, so it was safer to just be low-key. There hadn’t been an openly gay couple in our school, well, ever, as far as we knew, and I’d been bullied a lot when I was outed. So we didn’t hold hands. We didn’t flirt when other people were around. Sometimes I even felt kind of awkward just talking to him in school, just in case someone found out, and started bullying me again, or worse, started bullying Nick too.

      Nowadays, we don’t have to be scared here. I hold his hand whenever I want.