I don’t really know what she’s talking about. “How’s your apartment?”
She looks up. “Oh, it’s OK. Nicer than your place! I’m sharing with two other girls.” She shrugs. “They’re cool. Bit older than me. Hey, how’s your lot? How’s… what was his name? Gary?”
“Guy?”
“Yeah.”
“You met him. He’s a moron.”
She grins at this, and I tell her about the whole lot of them, and how they either seem more interested in drinking than studying, or like the girls they hide in their rooms and I hardly ever see them. It’s nice to be with Amber, I realize after a while. I can just be myself and relax. And I get the sense she feels the same, but at the same time I notice her checking her phone a couple of times, or maybe she’s just keeping an eye on the time.
We both order pizzas, and I explain how the work is a bit disappointing, at least so far, and she nods, and when I’ve finished she explains how her pitch works. They have to basically design a whole new suite of logos and how the different products the bakery makes will get packaged. But they’re up against two other design agencies, and the bakery will decide which one they prefer. If they don’t win, they don’t get paid anything. It’s interesting but, well, you know, it’s not that interesting, so I ask her if she’s managed to do any new designs for the Save our Sea-Dragons campaign, and she gets a bit uptight and says she’s already done loads for that. And then there’s a few moments where we’re both just eating the pizzas, and don’t seem to know quite what to say. I guess it makes me realize how Amber and I are moving apart more quickly than I’d anticipated. I mean I’m sure we’ll stay friends and everything, but we are on separate paths now, her into the commercial world, and me into academia.
Then before I’m even done eating, Amber’s phone pings, and when she checks it she swears and says she has to go. Right then. She insists on paying for the meal, even though I try to stop her. She says she got paid already. So that helps, because my bank account is looking pretty empty already.
Chapter Nine
Nearly two months go by with me telling myself – and Dad, when I ring him – that everything’s going great, when it isn’t. Not really. It’s a bit like with school if I’m honest, in that there’s no massive problem I could point to, it’s just the whole experience is somehow – I don’t know, underwhelming. But then something happens that changes everything. Like completely. Actually it’s not something, it’s someone.
I didn’t tell you, but just after the semester began I was selected for a special program, not here at BU but at a different university called Harvard. You might have heard of it, since it’s quite well known (though it doesn’t even teach Marine Biology). Anyway, Harvard University has a lot of money and likes to help out the other universities, so they offer a few special students – the ones from underprivileged backgrounds, or the really exceptional ones – additional courses, actually in Harvard itself. And I got told I fit into both those categories, so I was offered an extra class studying National and International Law. It was actually my tutor, Lawrence, who convinced me to go, since I didn’t see the point, but he told me that Law is very important, given that it impacts upon the coastlines and the oceans. And actually it is very interesting, partly because it’s actually something new to learn. The only problem is my Harvard class finishes at two on Thursdays, and then my Physical and Chemical Processes of the Ocean class starts at two thirty – which only gives me a half hour to get three miles across the city. Of course it doesn’t really matter if I’m late for Physical and Chemical Processes, since it’s super easy, and they don’t take registers in college, but I still feel it would be rude. But anyway. That’s why I was sprinting out of the Harvard campus just now, until I went around a corner too fast and literally smashed straight into a girl. She actually screamed like I meant it or something.
I stare at her as I pick myself up off the floor. Or bits of her. She’s lying on her back, with her legs in the air, and there are books everywhere. It gives me a few seconds to consider what to do. I’ve already seen the students around here are different from the kids at my high school – they all look like they’ve got money. I don’t want this girl to sue me.
“I’m really sorry.” I say suddenly. “Are you OK? I was late for a class, and…”
She rolls forward, her hair all messed up and her face white. Even so her appearance stuns me into silence.
“You nearly killed me!”
Slowly she picks herself up and slaps the dust from her jeans. On the one hand she looks like any of the hundreds of other students around, in jeans and a kind of blouse thing, but on the other hand it’s obvious she’s different. She’s stunning, and the anger on her face only makes her more striking. It’s pushed a red color into her cheeks, where the rest of her skin is pale and clear. But I don’t want to stare, so I bend down to pick up her books. I can’t help but read the titles. They’re all some sort of law textbooks.
“What class?” She says.
“Pardon?”
“What class are you late for?” She holds out her hands to take them, and as she does so she stares right at me.
“Oh it’s not here. I’m at BU…” She’s still looking at me, and there’s a curious expression on her face that I don’t understand. “It’s, um, Physical
