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Studies class, I paused, took a deep breath and walked in, trying to project an aura of confidence I didn’t feel. Scanning the rows, I saw a space next to a girl who reminded me of Cass. Taking it as a sign, I walked over and sat in the empty chair.
    “Hi,” I said, pulling out my notebook and pen.
    “Hi,” she replied, but angling her body away slightly. Unwilling to give in yet, I persevered.
    “I quite like this tutor, don’t you? I could listen to his voice for ages.” God, where did that come from? Probably the place called Make Yourself Look Inane in One Easy Step.
    “Uh, suppose so. Personally, I find it a little bit grating. I can’t believe how many of the tutors are American.”
    “Well, it is an American Studies course.” I tried hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
    “Yeah, but why on Earth would they come over here to live, you know, like, when they could be, like, in America?” At this point she (I never did find out her name) took out her mobile and started texting. Taking the hint, I titled my notes page and waited for the lecture to start. Cass she certainly wasn’t.
    I let the tutor’s Southern drawl wash over me, pen on auto-pilot for the hour. At the end of the lecture, I watched others leave, trying to identify who could be the next victim of the Neve-Needs-Friends initiative. Spotting a couple with no discernible sociopathic tendencies, I resolved to sit by one of them next time and left without acknowledging Cass-she-isn’t.
    I wandered out of the building but, knowing I couldn’t cope with the quiet solitude of the library, I had nowhere to go and nobody to be with. They didn’t show moments like this in the glossy university brochures and cheesy online adverts. No, it was all about the exciting places you’d visit and new friends you’d meet. Bollocks. Jake had been the only thing to get me through the first couple of weeks and now even he was gone.
    With a few hours to fill before my English class, and from some perverse need to relive one of my few treasured Brighton moments, I took the campus bus and got off at the seafront. Walking along toward the West Pier, I remembered the time I had spent on the beach with Jake. Especially the night I had fallen asleep on him, shattered after hours dancing at one of the beach-front clubs.
    Crunching my way across the shingle, I recalled the comforting weight of his arm draped across my shoulder and the way he dangled my shoes from his hand so I could walk barefoot. We had sat on the pebbles, me nestled between his thighs, looking out over the skeletal remains of the West Pier, hauntingly stark against the pre-sunrise sky.
    The warmth of his arms around me had calmed me to sleep. He was my gravity, keeping me centred. I hadn’t considered how weightless, how un-anchored I would be without him by my side. Was I really that naïve to have believed it would last forever? Of course I was; everyone falls in love believing, hoping, they have found the one person who will complete them until they draw their last breath.
    Sitting down in almost the same place we had watched the sunrise, I looked out to sea and realised the enormity of what had happened. The tears started but, as I gave in to them, I felt the panic of being alone overwhelm me. What had happened to my life? I was miles away from everyone who cared, who loved me. I had lost the person who mattered most to me.
    I was adrift.
    Like a tight band around my chest, the pain was constricting. As I gulped mouthfuls of air around hiccups of tears, I knew I needed to stop myself from having a panic attack, out here, cold and alone on the beach.
    Breathe in. Breathe out.
    In. Out.
    In.
    Out.
    I used the rhythm of the waves’ ebb and flow to regulate the heaving of my chest as I struggled to calm down.
    Hugging my arms around my knees, I recalled my English teacher telling us about Virginia Woolf’s suicide: how she had filled her pockets with heavy stones and walked into the river. At