I stand for a moment outside the door with Gerard’s name tacked onto it in brass. I can’t believe I walked in through the gates. My security card worked, and I didn’t get bounced out onto the pavement—so I guess that’s something.

Before I knock, I unzip the black backpack. It’s got that new bag smell. I peer inside. There’s a leather-bound notebook and a pencil case. “What is this?” I mutter out loud, causing a few passing students to glance in my direction. I grab out the pencil case, blue covered in pink hearts—it’s been made for a thirteen-year-old—and unzip it. Inside is a selection of Caran d’Ache Grafwood pencils and a pen wrapped in a Post-it note. I unravel the Post-it note, and a silver and heavy Montblanc falls into my hand. When I pull the lid, I discover it’s a Meisterstuck with red trim. On the note is a simple message.

For new starts.

My heart pounds, boom-de-boom-de-boom and with shaking hands I put everything back into the girly pencil case and turn for the door.

Am I going to do this?

I never go back on my decision. I never change my mind. So why the hell am I stood outside Gerard’s door?

Bollocks.

I knock and wait until he calls out for me to enter.

If he’s shocked to see me turn up with my tail between my legs, he hides it well. “Faith! So good to see you.” He’s got his official teacher voice on which has lost all impact on me—it’s unlikely to when you’ve seen the teacher climax.

“Hey.” I give him a wry smile. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say to him. I wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t on my plan today until Elijah turned up and waylaid me with roses and pastry.

“I’m glad you changed your mind.” He waves at the seat across his desk and motions I should sit down. No one said I was going to stop and chit chat. I sit down, though.

“I don’t understand how I’m here. I failed to submit a final piece last term, that’s an instant fail.” I’d been working on the lump of marble when I’d met Elijah and he’d convinced me to go to Bowsley Hall and create the installation.

“Yes, and that was my fault.” Gerard drops his eyes a little and studies his desk for a moment, fiddling with a biro he has placed on top of a pile of papers. His biro holds nothing to the Montblanc in the bag at my feet. My stomach does a tight constriction, but I block all thoughts of pens and handsome faces from my mind while I try to sort out what’s happening at the moment. “I’m sorry, Faith, I didn’t tell you the whole truth about my home life.” His eyes meet mine. “But I guess, well...” The tips of his ears scorch pink. “You’re an exciting woman to be around. Your creativity is on the border of genius—the way your art comes from inside you, one hundred percent passion and zero percent thought process. What you did at Bowsley was ground-breaking; I don’t think you truly realise the extent of that.”

“Thank you, but you could have told me you were married.” I lean back in my chair. “I’m clearly fucked up, that much is obvious to anyone who meets me, surely you would have thought honesty the best policy for the woman with tattoos and the personable skills of a gnat.” He smiles but I don’t reflect it on my own face.

“At some point soon, you are going to stop labelling yourself as broken and own everything that’s happened.” His eyes sweep my skin and I’d like to poke them out with chopsticks.

I hold my hand up. “So, what do I need to do? Do I have to hand in a late assignment to pass last year?”

I’m going to play catch up. My final piece was supposed to be a free carved structure in marble. It wasn’t. It wasn’t anything.

“No need, you passed.”

I narrow my gaze and Gerard’s freckles crinkle in the morning sun shining through the window. “How?”

He opens his desk drawer, as though he’s been expecting this exact conversation, and pulls a slender package wrapped in blue tissue paper. He slides it across the desk and I grab it, a frown creasing my face.

I unwrap it, knowing damn well he’s watching. “What the hell?” I stare at the slither of marble, a cameo of Elijah’s face in profile. I’d carved it one night when my head had been full of thoughts of him, his smell still lingering in my senses, on the cusp of a deep obsession—the brink of something wild and uncontrollable.

“This was packed.” I stare between the marble and Gerard, not sure where to look. “Elijah found it on my bookshelves the week he helped me pack up before I moved to Bowsley. He laughed at me.” I remember it with painful clarity.

Gerard shrugs. “It was submitted.”

I glare at him willing him to expand but his face erases into a careful neutral expression. “Are you with the Faircloughs now?” I ask. “I thought you said not to trust them.”

He had and I hadn’t listened because I was too busy not trusting him.

“I told you he’d hurt you.”

I shrug but my chest aches, my heart threatening to splinter. My eyes drop to the bag, the gifts unexpectedly given this morning.

Elijah Fairclough muddles everything and nothing is as it should be.

Gerard hands me a piece of paper and I take it with shaking fingers. “Your timetable. I’ve kept it light. You have a television show to plan.”

I laugh, it’s more of a giggle. Is any of this real? I think I’m living in a parallel universe.

Gerard glances at his watch. “First lecture is in half an hour. You’ve just got time to go get a coffee.”

That’s it. I’m back at uni. And to think I only got dressed to go to Tesco.

I grab my new bag and get up, heading towards the door. “Faith.” Gerard calls me back.

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re back. I won’t let you down again.”

I give him a small smile, but I can’t say I accept his apology. I don’t give second chances. Not to anyone.

***

I GRAB A COFFEE AND wave to a couple of students I recognise sat slumped at the corner table of the campus coffee shop. I don’t head over, though, I’m not one who has ever sat and mingled.

“Yo, Faith!” I turn at the sound of my name and blink stupidly for a moment as a tall guy slopes towards me. It takes a moment to place him. Because in my head he’s associated with the outhouse studio of Bowsley.

“Dylan?”

“You remember!” He smiles and pushes his hair out of his eyes.

“It was only a few weeks ago. I’m not suffering from amnesia.”

He grins and it’s all boyish charm. He’s got a backpack on and a lanyard hanging around his neck. “I’m signed up for first year.”

“Seriously?” It’s probably rude to sound so shocked but he doesn’t look upset. “Studying what?”

“Fine art. Guess you inspired me, I got in through Clearing—I was lucky.”

“Wow.” I’m a bit at a loss. “I didn’t know you liked art so much.” I shrug.

“I didn’t. Then you let me play with the glass, to hell with safety and rules, and I guess it inspired me.”

My mouth flaps open a little. I inspired him to take an art degree? That’s not possible, surely?

“Can you afford it? The fees are crazy?”

He nods but drops his eyes a little before lifting them to mine. “Elijah Fairclough is sponsoring me.”

He’s what?

“Wow, that’s generous.”

Dylan nods. “Yeah it is. I couldn’t have done this otherwise; my parents, they don’t have any money. I guess they never expected one of their kids to want to go to university, and if they had there wouldn’t have been any money to scrimp and save.”

I nod understandably. I get that. I’ve seen poverty around me all my life, but then I’ve also seen stupidity; men willing to spend hundreds on ink on their skin while their families need food and clothes. Hundreds they’d willingly pay me.

My mouth dries a little and my shoulders slump.

“I’m glad you’re here.” I nod my head towards the entrance. “I’ve got to get to class.”

He motions with his hand and then falls into step at my side. “So, you don’t mind talking to me even though you’re a super famous artist and I’m a freshman no one?”

I chuckle and sip my coffee. Shit that’s still too hot. “I’m not famous. And I’ll talk to you whenever you like.”

“Cool.” We are through security and the stairs leading the lecture hall are in front. “I’m up there.” I pull the crumpled timetable from my pocket and groan as I look at the first box listed under Monday. “Ancient ceramics. Great.”

Dylan grins. “See you around, Faith.”

“Sure.” I give him a wave and then head up the stairs. Gerard was having a laugh with my module choices. What an arse.

I pause outside the door and breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.

For a long moment the real possibility of legging it back down the stairs and out the door is very close. Very close.

Then I think of Dylan. That dude signed up to an art degree because of me. That was one guy. One guy. What else could I achieve?

My hand itches to grab my phone. An aching wrench pulls my stomach as I battle the urge to call Al. He’d tell me to walk through the door and fucking own it. I know he would. My hand does grab my phone but instead of calling my favourite person, I send a quick text to Dan.

How you keeping? Missing me?

I’m back at uni and telling myself Al would have agreed. Tell me the same ...

I pause for a moment waiting to see if any dots appear to tell me he’s writing back, but they don’t. With a sigh I drop my phone back down and steel myself. I can do this shit.

I can do this.

Pushing through the door, I hold my head up high. The lights are down, I’m late. I slip into a chair at the back where no one can see me and tune myself in to what Professor Wilks is saying. If he sees me, he doesn’t acknowledge me, which I’m eternally grateful for.

It’s break when the questions start coming. Mainly from Meg who wants to know all about Bowsley and if the rumours about Elijah Fairclough and I are true.

“You got a lucky break there, Faith.” She drops her head to one side, analysing me as she might a lump of clay, her blonde ponytail slipping over her shoulder. Someone give me a pair of scissors and I’ll cut the bloody thing off.

I know luck had nothing to do with it. Elijah Fairclough sought me out, but what’s the point of telling her that.

“Lucky, that’s me.”

“Is it true you smashed a giant glass heart at a grand ball?”

I shrug. “It wasn’t that giant.”

She whistles through her teeth.

“Okay, guys, come around,” Gerard calls to everyone. The afternoon session is my favourite. I love practical. I step forward grinning at my own excitement. And I wasn’t going to come back?

Elijah knew that, didn’t he? That this is where I’m happiest. Playing and messing with materials, seeing what I can create.

I keep breathing steadily. While I love learning in practical, I hate being around the other students. Meg is almost bouncing on the spot and I want to grab a hammer and beat her down with it. Lydia, another of the quieter students sends me an eye roll and I stifle a smile.

“Okay. Grab a welding mask and a burner. We are getting hot today.” Gerard points at the big tub full of safety equipment. I scrunch my face but follow the others over. I would have brought my own kit this morning if I’d known. I didn’t even have my reusable shopping bags with me for my unfulfilled trip to Tesco, let alone anything for class.

Once we are kitted out, our masks perched on our heads, Gerard flashes me a sly smile. “Faith is going to show us how to work with metal.”

I splutter everywhere. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Just like you did with that glass heart, can you show the others how to smelt the metal to encase and hold another object.”

Meg is glaring at me and beneath my ink my whole body is burning with a blush. “I’d rather not.”

“I’d rather you did.” As if to make the point Gerard steps back and folds his arms across his chest, leaning a hip against one of the workbenches.

He can’t be for real? Surely.

Everyone watches me. There isn’t much for me to do apart from step up and give a lame smile. “I’ve only done this once before.” This is the truth. Bowsley was my first time. I lock down the thought that Bowsley was a first for many things.

I centre myself and try to remember what it felt like those last couple of days at Bowsley, when I was scrambling for an idea for a centrepiece. Removing all logic, I grab a slender rod of steel and a polished stone the size of an egg. “The trick is,” I say. “To move quick once you are ready. The longer you wait, the more work you end up doing when you have to reheat it all again.”

I lose myself as the torch flames against the steel and we all wait for it to be on the verge of melting.

I’ve managed to get everyone to wrap their steel around a rock and suspend it in such a way each rock is interlocked together, when a phone rings.

I chuckle. That’s the lamest ring tone I’ve ever heard. Boyz II Men belt out ‘End of the Road’ so loud it’s as if it’s coming from a speaker.

“Anyone?” I grin as I look up. Most people, excluding Gerard and Lydia, look shocked by my display of white teeth. Jeez, am I that miserable? I mean I know I like to keep to myself, but I do smile—occasionally.

No one moves. This happened at Bowsley when Elijah had changed my ring tone to All Saints ‘Bootie Call’.

Shit.

I drop my equipment and march my way to where my bag is shoved in an unlocked locker at the back of the studio.

“What do you want?” I bark down the phone.

“I wanted to know if you fancied dinner?” Elijah is laughing. There is nothing funny at all. Why is he ringing me anyway? Why has he messed with my phone again?

I rub a hand across my face.

“Elijah, please don’t call. Don’t make this more painful than it needs to be.”

“Are you cross because you’re embarrassed? You know there is nothing wrong with Boyz II Men.”

“I’m not embarrassed. I don’t know what you’re doing. This is all a game to you, isn’t it?”

“Hold the line, caller.” He’s typing in the background and I groan. I.

Gerard snorts loudly as his phone beeps and he takes it out his corduroy pocket to check the message. He types back smirking in my direction.

“You’re going to forgive me, Faith.” Elijah’s warm voice licks along my insides.

“I’m not.”

“You are. Dinner, tonight. It’s on me.”

“Elijah—” But he’s gone.

I turn back to the room with a sheepish shrug. Everyone looks amused apart from Meg who is sucking on a particularly bitter lemon.