My foot’s getting pins and needles from lying at the wrong angle in my single bed. I want to sleep. On my own.

‘Er . . .’ I say, trying to find a way of waking him without him realizing I don’t know his name. I touch his arm with my finger and draw back as though I’ve been burned.

He wakes, startled. ‘Huh?’

‘Would you mind going home? I don’t think either of us will get a decent night’s sleep.’

‘Oh. Right, yeah.’ I shift aside so he can climb over me. ‘Wanna swap numbers?’

Neither my sister nor Mo told me the right way to handle this. I look away as he starts to dress, his unfamiliar body suddenly all wrong in this space.

Never mind the game play of one-night-stands. Do I want to see him again?

He’s sweet and thoughtful, despite the drink. We could have fun together, date even, if that’s what the eighteen-year-olds call it now. I certainly don’t want to hurt his feelings or his pride or—

But what do I want? Do I want to see him again?

No.

‘Let’s leave it,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s been great, but we’ve only just started term. It’s a whole new world for both of us.’

After he’s gone, I enjoy having my space back more than I enjoyed the sex. Maybe it sounded lame to him, but a whole new world is exactly what this is for me. One where I can learn to be selfish, to ask for what I want.

As I lie in bed, I make up rules to see me through the next five years: no sex with anyone from the medical school. Fun, yes. Kindness, yes. But no serious relationships with anyone. Nothing to take my eyes off the prize.

They keep us away from patients till well into 2007, when they bus us out on our first hospital placements. The others chatter like chimps, trying to cover up their fear of actual humans. I sit with Hanna near the front, and even she looks travel sick.

But I am at home the minute I arrive. This is my world. As we’re split into tutorial groups to tour different departments, the F1 who leads our small huddle has hollow cheeks and haunted eyes but perks up when he starts to describe the grimness of life on the wards.

‘We call this ward The Walking Dead,’ he whispers, before he buzzes us through into the elderly care ward. ‘It’s not even that accurate; most of them can’t walk.’

Grim humour is a survival mechanism, but as we go from bay to bay, his attitude riles me. This hospital isn’t the flagship where the medical school is based, it’s out in the sticks, neglected, and the patients in this ward are probably more neglected than most.