It was St Patrick’s Day 2007 and as usual we had been on a night out. St Patrick’s is a big event but we never needed an excuse for a night on the tiles. Having met up with some friends, the night of drinking and cavorting began. My best friend had started dating someone and I had asked if they would be joining us. I was informed that they were possibly joining us and he wrote down a telephone number for me to keep in case his phone got lost (which was common), or his battery died. On the paper he wrote ‘Danielle’ followed by her telephone number, I made a joke that I would phone the number and ask her to come and meet us. My best friend did not seem to react to this but, it was only a joke.

Throughout the night, nothing untoward happened but as usual my best friend got lost from us. No-one worried as this was a regular occurrence and we assumed he had met up with his girlfriend and she had not wanted to meet us.

My friends and I found a party and ended the festivities singing and dancing to some irish band. When it was time to leave the party, some of my friends went into town to a late night bar and my friend and I returned home. At the time I was living with my best friend and his mother. I never had to worry about waking them up in the early hours as the door was always unlocked. We had a very large Alsatian dog who’s bite was indeed worse than his bark so we never worried about the safety of the house.

At around 4am I stumbled through the door and up to my room. I possibly attempted to make some food on my way but hearing the call of my bed, I was more interested in sleeping. The very strange thing was, I decided to go on a detour. Having lived with my best friend for 12 months I had always respected his privacy; this applied even when I didn’t live with him. I always knocked on his bedroom door and would never have entered if he didn’t ask me to.

However on this particular night it was almost like fate had told me to disregard my manners. As I opened the door I expected to find him asleep, or better still, not there at all. However, he was there, he was not asleep and he was not alone. He was with another guy!

I immediately apologized and closed the door. For one second I wanted to re-open the door to see if I was wrong but I retreated from the door and went back into my room; I sat on my bed and huddled my knees into my chin. Suddenly I heard footsteps; my best friend’s door opened and he appeared at my open door. I looked up and burst out laughing.

Initially, my best friend would not look at me, “Oh please don’t not look at me, that’s the worst thing you could do.”

Thankfully he did look at me. He looked ashamed. There was no need. He apologized. I wanted to cry. “There’s absolutely no need to apologize, I should be the one saying sorry and you know what, it doesn’t matter, I love you no matter what”. My best friend’s eyes filled up and leaked a little bit. We both hugged and then laughed; we cried and then laughed some more. We both seemed to forget that there was a guy in his bedroom wondering what the hell was going on.