He pulled into the car park of the halls, which was filled with teenagers and suitcases and weeping parents. Zadie watched as a pretty blonde girl followed a slender woman and a bald man up the path. She had an armful of books and a dazed expression, as if she had arrived somewhere wonderful. Zadie considered her, considered all of them. She could do as she had promised her mother she would. Unpack into whatever box-sized bedroom she had been assigned. Make friends with the girls on her hallway. Do everything she had been doing at boarding school for the last seven years, all over again. And a little part of her wanted to. When was the last time she had done something the ‘normal’ way? But she had promised Max. She had come here for Max. They’d spent the entire summer excited about finally living together like grown-ups. How would he feel if she suddenly turned around and said she wanted to have the bog-standard university halls experience, rather than living with him?

She leaned forward between the two front seats and gave the driver her most persuasive smile.

‘Would you mind taking me a tiny bit further? It’s called Archer Crescent.’

The driver looked unconvinced. ‘I promised your parents I’d drop you here.’

Zadie laughed and put her hand on his arm. ‘I know, but that was because they were worried I’d try to convince you to take me to the airport so I could run away to Aruba and live naked on a beach for the rest of my life. This is just a little change of address.’

He raised an eyebrow but indicated left, turning towards the pretty crescent where Max’s parents had insisted on getting him a house, and away from the halls, where her parents had equally insisted that she would live.

Her mother was so obsessed with the whole thing she’d even braved having lunch with Max’s mother, who she couldn’t stand. ‘We’re like a really boring Romeo and Juliet,’ Zadie had laughed to Max.

The houses, which sat on a little hill, were tall and golden with pastel-coloured front doors. They looked out across the rest of the town; it was green and gold and teeming with possibilities. Halls was all well and good, but how could she be expected to resist moving in here? Finally, after years and years of hiding, making up alibis and snatching days together on holidays or over school exeats, Zadie would be able to be with Max. Really be with him.