Owen doesn’t really belong with Hawthorn anyway. Like Bec and Kellen, he’s on a scholarship, and, with no Rhys Pass, most of them treat him like dirt. They openly make fun of his size and his general clumsiness, but the irony is that if he wasn’t such a gentle giant he could easily flatten any one of them. That’s the thing about Oakbrook – here, it doesn’t really matter how big and tough you are. Money is power within these walls, and those without it are made sure they don’t forget it.

‘It’s gotta be one of them,’ Chase says as I watch Josh sit down with Cameron.

‘Huh?’ Bec says. ‘Who’s gotta be one of what?’

‘Someone voted Zach for hottest boy.’

‘Oh my God, I saw!’

‘Did you also see you won hottest girl?’ I grin.

‘I saw that Tiffany won hottest girl,’ she says. ‘And then the results magically changed about an hour ago.’ She looks at Chase. ‘Your handiwork, I assume?’

He smirks. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Bec smiles back at him. ‘So this secret admirer, Zach? It has to be Josh, right?’

‘We were kinda hoping for lover boy over there,’ Chase says, nodding in Cameron’s direction.

I can’t take my eyes off him. He and Josh are whispering now, and I swear they just glanced over in our direction. Surely they’re not actually talking about me?

‘Can we just not?’ I finally say. I’m getting carried away. I don’t want Chase and Bec putting ideas in my head. ‘Let’s forget it. I feel like someone’s just trying to fuck with me. Get my hopes up just to smash them right back down again.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Bec says. ‘Keep those hopes sky-high, Zachary. Someone’s into you! And it’s gotta be one of the boys. Right, Chase? The girls wouldn’t waste their vote on a gay guy. They’d vote for someone they actually thought they had a shot with.’

‘Exactly,’ says Chase. ‘It’s either Josh or Cameron. It has to be. Unless it’s one of the “straight” boys. You know what they say … everyone’s a little gay at private school.’

We all laugh at that, but I don’t actually think there’s any truth in it. I doubt anyone’s actually closeted at Oakbrook. This place has a long list of problems but, surprisingly, homophobia isn’t one of them. Tiffany’s transphobia aside, people are generally free to be themselves without worrying about the consequences. I’ve not heard anyone yell ‘backs against the wall’ since I got here. It’s a much-needed change from my last school. Things were very different there. So when Mum’s business took off, and I was handed a fancy brochure offering me a ‘new life’ and a ‘better education’, it was the lifeline that I needed.