In the fourth week, Josh was absent on Wednesday, but on Friday he came and sat right beside her. Several times he almost brushed her arm with his, confirming her suspicion that if he ever touched her it would be incredibly difficult to concentrate on anything else except the thought of touching him again. The lecture was a total loss, learning-wise.

When they reached the place of their usual separation on the east lawn that day, he said, ‘You in a rush?’ And without waiting for an answer sat down on the grass and held his hand out to her to join him and she did, like it was a normal thing to do, just take the hand of a man you’d been fantasising about for the last three months and sit easily beside him on the lawn of a university you’d fantasised about attending for the six or so years since you knew it existed and then talk on that lawn with that man as though you were the kind of girl to whom all this was nothing.

She missed her bus and the next one, which meant she would barely make it to work on time, and even then only if she managed to squeeze on board the 5.35, which was always packed with city office workers on their glum and pushy way home. It’d be worth it, though. Josh had told her that talking to her was addictive, and then he hugged her long and hard and pressed his impossibly smooth cheek against hers before pulling back and looking into her eyes for one, two, three, four, five seconds. ‘See you next week, Harris,’ he said, and when she looked back from the edge of the lawn he was still there watching.

At Sunday lunch Aunty Nic had noticed she was buzzy. Forced her to disclose that she was in the grip of a serious and very fun crush.

‘We’re only in one class together because he’s actually a third year.’

‘So he’s your age then?’ Nic asked.

Lena was old for a first year. Not old like the mums returning to uni now their kids had left home or the senior citizens using their retirement to pack in an extra degree; not so old that you could tell just by looking that she wasn’t fresh out of high school. Coming from interstate it was easy to glide over the gap. Her answer to the inevitable where-did-you-go was a school none of them had heard of and so there was no follow up of oh-my-god-you-must-know-my-tennis-friend-Janie.