The things I have learned living with Harper and Jesse are that they’re not as shy about the toilet as me, they don’t mind their clothes sitting wet in the washing machine for days, they will squish things down and jenga a piece of rubbish on top of a teetering bin rather than take the garbage out, they haven’t appeared to notice I do all the vacuuming, and they can’t cook. Harper goes out a lot at night to see Penny, but when she’s home, she eats takeaway or plain pasta with cheese. Jesse seems to eat cereal for dinner as his main option, sometimes two-minute noodles, sometimes a banana and a giant tub of yoghurt. Occasionally he’ll cook a steak and eat just that, a hunk of meat alone on a plate, sitting in its juices.

When I cook, I put any leftovers in the fridge with a note encouraging Harper and Jesse to help themselves, listing the ingredients (in case of allergies) and the date it is good until, adding a smiley face and an exclamation mark to make it all seem very friendly and relaxed and low drama. I even bought purple Post-it notes because they seem less uptight than the standard yellow ones.

I have the purple Post-it notes with me now in class, because they also seemed the most appropriate for creativity, but now I’m suddenly worried PJ will judge those too. She seems like a strictly no-nonsense yellow-Post-its-only person. I subtly slide them off my desk and push them back into my bag. Finally, other students start arriving, including Sophie, Justin and Ruby, the three students who I sit with every class and who are the closest I have come to making friends with at uni so far. I always have a moment of fear when they arrive, that they won’t sit with me today, and I curse myself simultaneously for putting myself in this position by arriving early and for being so pathetically insecure to even worry about it, but they smile and head in my direction, and I almost slump in relief.