The depths of the night were sliced with light and laughter, stumbling, cursing and the springs of my bed groaning as a figure fell onto the mattress at the foot of my bed.

‘Oops,’ the voice said, followed by a telltale hiccup.

I groaned, turning away from the sounds and the assault of fluorescent, flickering globes, pulling the sheet with me in an effort to shield myself from them. My roommates were talking to me but I didn’t care. I just had to not think, not move until my head stopped pounding and my gut stopped churning. I wanted no part of this reality: drunk, screeching girls and jostling jocks who said ‘Dude’ a lot. I hoped Maria would appear to chastise them like a boarding school marm, but this wasn’t school. No, this was the epitome of freedom, and although I had thought it was what I wanted, at 3 a.m. I wanted no part of it. I cocooned my ears with my arms and focused desperately on drifting back to sleep, and it almost worked, until another form of light streamed across my face. Warm and intense, it stirred me from my dream of wandering the cobbled streets of Rome in a flowing skirt, large sunhat and glasses, eating gelato without a care in the world. It had seemed so real. The warmth of the sun on my face as I lifted it to the sky, the hot, thick air that smelt like … cheese?

Cheese?

My eyes slowly peeled open, blinking, confused, until I spied my less-than-thrilling reality in the form of a big hairy toe. My eyes widened, refocusing on the toe that was attached to a huge foot suffering from a severe case of sock tan, leading up to a kneecap, a thigh and a … oh, Jesus!

I catapulted out of bed. I would have hit the floor harder but the sheet I was twisted in acted like a B-grade bungee cord, slowing my momentum towards the cold, tiled floor. Waking up to a naked man in my bed was not something that happened to me, well, ever.

‘Nate! Get out of my bed,’ I shouted, struggling to stand and save some dignity while fighting with the off-white sheet. Realising I was as fully clothed as I had been in the courtyard, and that I really didn’t want to find out why the sheet was now off-white, I refrained from tugging it further. Which was lucky, as it was still connected to Nate and was the only thing providing him with a modicum of modesty. Nate stretched, screeching and moaning, rubbing his hands over his eyes and up through his buzz cut. He rolled onto his side like a lazy tomcat languishing in the sun, then peered up at me with a slow-forming smile. ‘Your bed?’ he asked.

‘Well …’ I paused, glancing around the room that looked like a clothing bomb had exploded. Aside from the chaos and early-hour drunken antics, everyone had somehow managed to stumble into their own beds; well, Jodie had fallen into Johnny’s, her head snugly tucked on top of his shoulder, in a twisted mess of sheets and a whole lot of skin. I wondered if I had managed to sleep through an orgy. I quickly averted my eyes from the sated couple, casting over the mess to Bookworm Gary, who sat on the windowsill, sewing a hole in his sock with intense concentration, to the sleeping body of Harper passed out on the bed in the corner. I focused back on Nate, who now seemed wide awake and looked up at me with interest.

‘Um, so my bed is …?’

Nate pointed upwards, to the bunk overhead.

My shoulders slumped, not because I was wrong, but because the top bunk was the bain of my childhood. Being the youngest meant I always drew the short straw, and now, even on my independent, finally-becoming-an-adult holiday, here I was on the top bloody bunk again.

As Nate flung himself back on his squeaky mattress, folding his hands behind his head, my despair didn’t go unnoticed. ‘What? Don’t you want to be on top?’ he said, wiggling his brows.

I rolled my eyes, and without a word unravelled my toga-like attire and flung the sheets back over him, trying to step over the wayward shoes and boxer shorts, fighting my way towards the door.

Pfft, top bunk.

I held my head high, ignoring the laughter behind me, making my way to the door, where Kylie appeared, toiletries in hand, hair twisted up in a towel; her eyes seemed alight with the same taunting amusement as Nate when she spotted me, stepping to the side to let me through.

Ugh, juveniles.

‘There she is! Have a good night, then?’ she asked, her smile impossibly white against her tan skin.

Yes, ha-bloody-ha, I ended up in Nate’s bed; oh, how they must have laughed about that last night. Well, it wouldn’t be happening again, and I wanted to say as much, seeing her knowing eyes tick toward Nate, who shared the same smug look.

‘Not really,’ I said indignantly.

‘You sure about that?’ she mused.

‘Yes, why?’

‘Because you look like the cat that got the cream,’ yawned Jodie, making everyone laugh.

I turned towards her—she was sitting upright in Johnny’s Led Zeppelin T-shirt, combing her hands through her bed-hair and looking at me like she knew a secret.

Whatever.

I’d never been in any kind of clique; why begin now?

‘If anyone’s purring, it’s you,’ I said, curving my own brow in challenge and swinging away from Jodie’s death stare. I sauntered my way past Kylie and through the door. And though I could still hear their sniggers, I did feel kind of badass, having the final word then walking out. If you were going to survive in the pack you couldn’t show weakness, you had to hold your ground. And I had done that, yes, sir. I strode with a new kind of confidence into the communal bathroom down the hall, shutting the door and locking it behind me. I was soaring with self-importance, but all that came crashing down the moment I turned around and spied myself in the murky reflection of the mirror.

‘Oh, good God, no.’

There, stuck partially to my forehead was a big white label with black scrawl.

Marcello.

I groaned, peeling it off and thinking back to last night. Marcello carrying me up the stairs, Marcello pressing his hand against my face to check my temperature.

‘Ha-fucking-ha!’

Not so badass anymore.