From inside the building I could hear voices: my fellow students. They were in the corridor, talking and bonding, flirting, getting to know each other; chatting about where to go for dinner. Vacuous. No cares in the world. I pictured them leaning casually against the walls, dirty shoes marking the paintwork; someone’s door open, music coming from inside, and I longed to be with them; one of them. There was the occasional voice raised in mock offence, and too much laughing. Something deep inside my head had thrummed and then, when I heard the rap of knuckles on my door and the excited voices stopped outside my room, I’d held myself statue-still, not breathing. Even the earring I liked to twist between my fingers fell still.

‘Is she in?’

‘I thought she was.’

‘I didn’t hear her go out.’

‘Maybe she popped out for something to eat?’

‘Knock again.’

I visualized the force field, crackling and electric outside my door; a barrier of energy to repel them and, after a few interminable moments, I heard the shuffling of feet retreating.

‘We tried.’

‘Never mind. Another time.’

I’d slumped back on the pillow, the corridor once more silent. My window was open to the warm September evening but then, right outside my room, the air was rent with the sudden and hostile blare of a car horn that sent my heart scudding. When it had calmed, I’d turned my attention back to the book I was trying to read, my eyes going over the same paragraph I’d read ten minutes previously, and then the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I froze.

Someone was outside my room; I felt it. I waited, motionless, for the knock but, as the pause extended, I slid silently off the bed and crept towards the door. I’d held my breath, waiting for the person outside to make a move, and I’d stood there for almost a minute, then, when nothing happened, I’d ripped opened the door and there – looking as surprised to see me as I was to see her – was a student about five feet six tall, with shiny, dark hair, tortoiseshell glasses, pale skin and freckles. I still remember what she was wearing: grey skinny jeans, a white T-shirt with a scarf knotted artfully around her neck and the same scuffed white Adidas we were all wearing in those days. Over her shoulder she’d slung a stylish leather bucket bag, which had made me instantly rethink the backpack I carried everywhere.

We’d stared at each other for a moment, then she’d said, simply, ‘Hi, I’m Grace. Can I come in?’ and the force field had really failed me there because I’d stepped back and let her walk right into my life.