It was the last thing I ever expected to happen.

As I had every year, I spent the summer of 1994 with Aaron Hockridge.

It was the last Saturday of the holidays and we were sitting in the treehouse that his dad had built for him when he was a kid and which, at 15, we were getting too big for.

The floor was a mismatch of jagged carpet offcuts and the walls were covered with posters of Manchester United.

There was a small Perspex window which gave a view to the Hockridge’s expansive garden and we had spent much of the summer watching Aaron’s older sister, Elise, sunbathing with her friend, Shelley.

Elise never took off her baggy Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt, but Shelley favoured a baby-blue bikini. I felt no attraction toward her at all, but there was a thrill in observing her actions.

Aaron and I were flicking through back issues of GamesMaster and Match of the Day magazines when he said, ‘Do you ever think about just moving away and starting again somewhere?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Like Claire Tucker,’ he said. ‘Just pack your bags and go.’

Claire Tucker was a girl we’d known in Year Seven. Her parents had divorced and when her mum was killed in a car crash, Claire moved to Australia to live with her dad.

‘I don’t think it was that simple for Claire Tucker,’ I said. ‘Why are you even thinking about that?’

Aaron sighed. ‘My parents are driving me fucking nuts, Chris.’

He lay back on the floor and rested his hands behind his head; his t-shirt rode up to show a flash of fine hair and a golden tan line above the waistline of his jeans.

‘What are they doing now?’ I asked.

Aaron’s parents had the strangest relationship I’d ever witnessed, on or off TV. They could be all over one another, glass of wine in one hand, each other’s faces in the other; or they could be screaming so loudly you could hear them at the end of the drive and wonder if calling for your best friend is a good idea (which you always decide it is).

‘She locked him out again last night,’ he said, staring at the ceiling. ‘He’d been at some work thing and she’d been drinking since I got back from yours. She kept shaking her head when she talked. So I went up to bed, just to get out of the way, and I must have fallen asleep ‘cos the next thing I knew, he was banging on the door..’

He paused and looked at me, as if waiting for approval to continue. I nodded and he went on.

‘I went out to the landing and Elise was at the front door. The key was in the lock so Dad couldn’t get in and mum was shouting at Elise, ‘’Don’t you dare let that bastard in. Don’t you fucking dare let him in.’’ And I-,’

He went silent again, covered his eyes with his hands and began to sob.

I didn’t know what to do. The only time I’d seen him cry before was when he’d gone over the handlebars of his BMX in the Safeway car park and the skin on his elbow went bloody and flappy.

Now, I reached out and rested my hand on his shoulder, half-expecting him to recoil from my touch, compose himself and start winding me up about my monumental losing streak in Mortal Kombat.

But he didn’t. He just lay there, crying with my hand on his shoulder until there was nothing left to cry and he sat up again, his eyes red and puffy and his face sallow and strange.

He held my gaze for a moment before I suddenly felt his lips on mine. I tasted the salt of his tears and felt the warmth of his hand on the back of my neck.

I didn’t resist and the kiss lasted for a few seconds until he pulled away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, then went back to reading Match of the Day as if nothing had happened.