She wants to say something but needs more coffee. The key ceremony ran late last night. Another two girls were sent home but not before hours’ worth of alcohol, tears and bitchiness. She and Mel had been run off their feet with the amount of drama going on. She hopes Alice will be happy with what they managed to get the girls to say in their interviews and what the guys had captured on camera. She’d almost cried when her alarm had gone off this morning. She’d snoozed it three times before dragging herself from under the doona. Her phone had buzzed on and off the entire trip with texts and phone calls wishing her a happy birthday. Now she wishes she were out for breakfast at the cafe down the road from their unit in Sydney. Coffee, omelette, more coffee. That would make her pretty happy right now.

Instead she’s here, parked on Ravenshaw Street near Gloucester High School. There’s been a cold snap and the wind is whipping hard off Barrington Tops. Despite the weather, the fete is busy, the smell of the Lions Club sausage sizzle wafting through the air. She can see market stalls have been set up on the basketball courts and footy field. There’s going to be lots of people she knows, lots of people she’s going to have to make small talk with.

‘Darce?’ Drew says, still waiting for her reaction. ‘Did you hear me?’ His grin has only slightly faltered. He’s hoping she’ll be happy about it.

But she’s not happy.

‘Drew, it’s only March,’ she points out, feeling slightly bad she hasn’t congratulated him on a job well done. He’s clearly impressed them if they’ve offered him a teaching position until the end of the year. But still, her escalating nerves win out. ‘I agreed to ten weeks long distance, not ten months!’

His face falls. ‘I thought you’d be happy for me.’

‘How can I be happy if you’re going to be living four hours away? How are we going to make that work?’

Drew goes to say something but then stops, smiling hello to a couple walking past. Darcy can’t bring herself to look at whoever it is. She doesn’t want to be having an argument on the street. What was he thinking dumping the news on her here?

‘You’ve only got a couple of months left on The One,’ he says. ‘After that we could pack up our unit in Sydney and you could come back here.’

‘Come back here?’ she echoes incredulously, as though he’s suggesting checking herself into jail.

‘I was dying in Sydney, Darce. I want to be here.’ He looks more vulnerable than she’s seen him in a long time. ‘Don’t you miss it?’ He indicates the surroundings, showing off his paradise. The rolling green hills, the steel-blue mountains, the quaint small town.