I don't know how long I'm standing there, leaning against the fire exit and wishing all of a sudden for my bed at home, for my family, for Jamie. The longing for him shoots through me so violently and without warning that I double up, wrapping my arms around myself in an effort to hold myself together. What am I doing, trying to convince myself that shutting all those memories away in an unreachable corner of my mind will make it easier? Why am I with Toby? The guilt of the last few weeks finds me at last as I stand there, the night slowly fading to that dull grey that precedes the dawn, slowly sinking into a tiny ball folded up against the grimy metal door as I realise that I physically can't stand anymore.
I notice that the music has stopped. It's replaced by the sounds of many drunk voices making their way away from me, back towards the halls of residence.
'Maya?' The voice is taut with worry, calling. Whoever it belongs to hasn't seen me yet. I raise my face from my knees. My cheeks are wet, for some reason.
'Oh, Jesus, there you are.' It's Toby. 'I was so worried. We looked everywhere.' He gets closer, sees that I'm crying. 'Are you okay?'
I shrug, and look down again at my knees. There's a cigarette squashed between the fingers of my right hand, burnt all the way to the filter. I don't remember lighting it.
'Come home with me?' he stretches out a hand towards mine. As soon as his skin touches me, I flinch away as if I've been burned. His touch is foreign and his hands are too warm and he's not Jamie.
'Don't touch me.'
His face crumples, but he leans away from me as my stomach churns and I lean over into the corner behind the bins and my six or seven or eight or however many drinks of the night make their reappearance.
'You okay?' he crouches down beside me. Too close.
I groan. 'I'm fine.'
'What did you mean? About Poppy stealing your boyfriend?' This is why he's come to find me. 'You don't mean me, do you? Or is there someone else I don't know about?'
The someone else sends another stab of pain through me and I curl into an even tighter ball, wrapping my arms around my knees.
'I don't want to talk to you, Toby. Please go away.'
His face crumples. This is the worst time to say it, when I'm drunk and miserable and should have said it days, weeks ago. But now the words have started they don't seem to want to stop.
'I don't want to be your girlfriend.'
There. Done.
Toby looks wounded. 'What do you mean?'
'Do you really want me to say it again?'
'I don't understand. I thought we were-'
'You never asked me! If you had, I would have said that I didn't want to be in a relationship. I hate that people assume we're together whenever they see us. I hate it. I just kept coming back and got stuck in this... thing. That I didn't want.'
His voice is so quiet I can barely hear it. 'Why do you hate it, Maya?'
'Because I'm not in love with you! I can't ever fall in love with someone again! If I do, how do I know they're not just going to-' my voice cracks.
'To what?'
'To go and die on me!'
There's a half second of ringing silence following these words.
'What?'
I've said too much. Emotions slide across his face so quickly I can barely spot them: hurt, shock, worry, anger. He reaches his hand out to me, and his sympathy sends another wave of pain crashing over me. I snatch my hand away from his.
