Lizzie Bickerstaff navigates the triumphs and embarrassments of the most turbulent term at university.

1.You’re eighteen and you know everything. You clutch an empty tube of hair dye a little too hard in your parents’ bathroom. You’re cool now, you’re an adult: a cool adult. You look like that one girl in that movie your ex liked – yeah, she’s cool – you’re just like her. Your mum is cross; you’ve stained the sink. She doesn’t understand, she’s never been this cool. A week later in your student bathroom all your cool falls out in clumps and swirls around the drain. The shower tray is splotched: cool pink. You miss your mum.

2.‘Cool hair!’ You thank the girl outside your lecture theatre and touch your tufts. You both stand awkwardly until a boy beside her asks where you’re from. He’s never heard of your town, thank god. The girl disappears. The boy rolls a cigarette. You hope he thinks your hair is cool. You can’t possibly know it now, but in three years you and the girl will laugh on your shared sofa, recounting this first exchange. You are embarrassed you didn’t see her then. You see her now; she is your best friend. She still likes your hair. The boy is another story.

3.He rolls you a ciggy in a shabby pub garden. You’re outwardly embarrassed you can’t do it yourself but secretly thank your ineptitude for this opportunity. The pub is too loud. You muffle the noise with a third beer. He thinks you like beer- you don’t. You think he’s so clever- he does too. He thinks it is ‘like so unjust that women don’t feel safe in this city’. You nod and try not to think about the walk home. He kisses you. The taste is awful but isn’t it nice that he cares? You are kissing a feminist, how grown up. He asks to ‘come back to yours’ and you say ‘no’– slurred but unmistakable. He stares at his shoes and nods. He asks if you’re walking home alone. You say you are. He wishes you luck as he returns inside. You walk home alone.

4.Your last essay is due tomorrow. It’s December and your fingers are numb. Your eyes blur at the blank screen. You hate it. It hates you. You cry to your tutor when she asks what went wrong. You think you’re heartbroken. Of course you are!  How can she not see? How can you possibly write with a broken heart? You should have known right from that night at the pub. It’s all gone down the drain again. All you’ve learnt from all of this is how to roll your own cigarettes, but you’ll quit after three months anyway. You think you’ve ruined it with your useless brain and your useless heart. You haven’t. You call your mum, you text the girl, you blank the boy. When you’re given a second chance you pummelled the screen with words.

5.You look back and cringe. You vow to never make errors again. Next year you’ll be different, next year you’ll really know everything.

Artwork by Sara Tokarz