The Lost Girl stayed behind with Sam after the others had left the room. As Sam looked at her, he sensed a strange, nervy tension coming from her. And now that it was just the two of them he began to see that she was a few years older than he’d taken her for. Twenty-three or twenty-four, he guessed.
What possible events in her past could have caused her to postpone coming to university until now, he wondered? Could they have something to do with her sleeping phobia?
‘How can I help?’ he asked.
‘Right.’ A breath. ‘The thing is . . .’
She scrunched up her face and bit down on her pierced lip, adjusting the strap of the heavy bag on her shoulder with her purple nails. As she did so, he noticed a small, amateurish tattoo on the inside of her wrist for the first time.
‘Yes?’
‘I was wondering, with my sleep deprivation and everything.’ She dipped her head and he caught the shimmer of something plastic in her ear, beneath her hair. Another piercing, he supposed. ‘Being so tired is definitely impacting my studies. And I have this essay due next week that I’m not sure how I’m going to get done with being so exhausted all the time. So I wondered, do you think you could write my tutor an email for me? I just thought it might sound more credible coming from you.’