‘You look amazing,’ he said once she was seated across from him, and it was all she could manage not to tip the beer over his head and leave.

‘Thanks. Is that what you were so desperate to say to me?’

‘No. Sorry. Lena, I …’ He began tearing a burgundy napkin into thin strips. It must be hard for him, trying to sit still, pretend to focus on her and her alone. As though hearing her thoughts he dropped the napkin, pushed it to the edge of the table, folded his hands in front, looked her in the eyes. ‘I fucked up. I disrespected you and betrayed your trust.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve never regretted anything so much.’

‘Same.’

‘Not being with you! I could never regret that. It’s why I needed to see you, to talk. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. About us.’

God, was he for real? She kept her face blank.

‘I know you probably can’t forgive me, but can you at least admit that you did have feelings for me? That we were good together.’

Her body betraying her, the liquid heat flooding her lower belly, replacing the hunger cramps and beer bloat. The warmth spreading out and up, probably turning her face red. Probably making her pupils enlarge. She slugged more beer because she would not lick her lips to salve the sudden dryness there.

‘The thing is …’ He picked up the table-talker—$15 cocktails Wednesday and Thursday 4–5pm—smoothed it flat against the table, his hands working the folds out, hard along each seam. ‘The thing is, I’ve been under all this pressure at college. Like, you know the shit that’s been going down, in the news and all. I wasn’t involved in any of it, and you’d think that’d be a good thing, but it put me under suspicion. People were saying I was the leaker. It got so I was piling furniture in front of my door at night, I was so scared they’d come and … I don’t know. Some act of retribution or whatever. I mean, you have no idea the kind of stuff these guys are capable of.’

‘I have some idea.’

He paused in his work, left his hands flat on the table-topper, looked at her properly again. ‘Yeah. That’s what’s so fucked up. I became the monster so the monster wouldn’t hurt me.’

‘My heart bleeds for you. Is that it? I’m really busy.’

‘Yeah? I wondered about that. You haven’t been at uni, so … I wondered what you were up to, if you were staying away because of me, or—’

‘My aunty had an accident and I’m her only family in Sydney. I’ve been taking care of her.’

‘Oh. Thank god. Not that your aunt—obviously. I was worried you’d, like, dropped out of uni because of …’