I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of Kit jetting off to Paris to meet Tully. It's such a romantic cliché, yet I wish somebody cared that much about me.

She's nervous the night before, afraid it will all go wrong. "Suppose we have nothing to say to each other any more?"

"What, while you're discovering Paris together? You'll have plenty to say, you always do!" I open a bottle of wine and fill two glasses, pushing one towards her. Kit is curled up, pensive, on her corner of the couch, her eyes enormous and her face as pale as death. There's just the two of us in our little sitting room together.

"Tully hasn't changed." As the words tumble out of my mouth, I wonder if they are true. Success changes a person, any person, even Tully. I know, I've seen it in my father and I saw how his sudden wealth split my parents up. "He only has eyes for you." That much, at least, could be true.

"I don't know," Kit chews her lip. "Girls are more interested in Tully now." She's thinking of the other night in the Buttery, how Tully is the one in the spotlight, while she's left in the shadows.

"Of course they are, he's an up and coming rockstar, but Tully knows you're the real deal because you cared about him before any of that happened. Sure, look, last year I thought he was a loser stuck in Drimshanra, but you stuck by him."

"I knew about his mother and the cancer," Kit murmurs. "He had to put her first."

"Well, there you go, that proves Tully puts the people he loves first, so you have nothing to worry about."

"Thanks, Felice, I'm sorry I'm being like this. I should be happy things are going so well for him and I am. It's just I'm worried about where it leaves us. And now Spike is going to America too, and I have to face Trinity on my own."

"Don't worry," I pat her hand, "you'll have a ball in Paris. Half the female population of Ireland would kill to be you right now."

"I suppose that's true," Kit sips her wine thoughtfully. "It's funny, it's not what you expect, is it? Even when I was pushing Tully to do something with his music, and I wanted so much for him to be successful, I never really thought about how our lives would be changed if it happened."

"Success is a lottery and Tully hit the jackpot. Mac Whitehead was doing well when we met him first, and then it all came crashing down around him." I finish my wine and put down the glass. "Everybody dreams about it but nobody is ever ready for it. There's nothing you can do to change it, so stop worrying and go to bed!"

Neither of us get much sleep. The flight is early and Kit is not a morning person. The dark circles under her eyes give her an air of vulnerability as I wave her off in the taxi and hope she'll be alright.

After she's gone, I'm too restless to stay in the house on my own, so I head into college and arrive just as the doors open. In the early morning solitude, the first year studio is peaceful and calming.

I've never had it to myself before, but I can't concentrate. My mind is on Kit and Tully. Almost unconsciously, I pick up a scrap of paper and start doodling. Before I know it I've sketched a heart. At its centre, entwined together, are their names, Kit & Tully. Idly, I mix up some paint and start filling it in, adding some shadow and depth, making the design more complex and three-dimensional. It's not real art but it absorbs me, and I lose track of time as I relax and let my mind wander.

My thoughts turn to Spike, but even though he is giving up a lot to follow Tully, I'm not worried about him. He might regret dropping out of Trinity, but I think he'd regret it more if he didn't go.

And then there's the presence of Aonghus, which isn't to say I believe in Aonghus, though when you've grown up in the shadow of his tomb, like I did, you don't disbelieve in him either. Even though I'd never admit it to Kit, Tully's rapid rise sometimes makes me wonder, especially since it reminds me of Drimshanra's other unlikely success story –– Axel Carr.

There it is, that's what's bothering me. I'm worried about my dad. Something is up with him, something I can't put my finger on.

A dark shadow swoops across my vision.

"Hey! Look what you made me do?" The paint on my brush was red and now there's a bloody streak through Kit and Tully's names.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't expect to find anyone in here," Danny apologises.

Danny was the first person I noticed when I got here, because he looks a lot like Len, my ex-boyfriend, and it immediately put me off him.

I've been lowkey ignoring him since. He gets enough attention already, because he is so talented and it annoys me more than it should. Everyone here is good. You have to be to get into art college. The lecturers keep telling us art is subjective, individual with so many different styles and interpretations, that there are different ways to be good. It makes sense, but to me there still is only one way, Danny's way. His work has an intensity that draws me, because it's how I think good art should look.

"That's nice." He leans over to examine my sketch.

Too late to hide it, I'm ready to die of embarrassment. "I was just doodling."

"It would make a great piece of graffiti."

"Graffiti," I snort. To me, street art is losers with cans of spray paint, putting shit on walls. Not exactly what I'm going to art college for.

"Yeah," Danny leans in closer. "You have a real eye for design."

An eye for a design sounds better than tagging random walls. Still! "I want to be a painter."

"Don't we all!" Danny leans back against the bench and winks at me. He has Len's easy manner and the same teasing grin.

Thankfully, the class is starting to fill up. Dervla arrives and immediately sets up an easel beside Danny. She is the second person I noticed on my first day and she radiates rivalry. I can pick up on hate vibes and they don't bother me in the slightest. In a way, they amuse me. Dervla likes Danny. It's there in the possessive way she makes sure her easel is next to his, blocking him off, not letting anyone else get close.

This is our core painting class. A model is set up for us in the morning and we have the whole day to paint her.

"That's going well," a teacher says to me just before class ends. "You can stay back and keep working on it, if you want."

But I'm not in the mood. It's been a long day and the lack of sleep is beginning to catch up on me. I'm about to make an excuse when she turns to Danny, "You should stay too!"

Dervla is looking daggers at me.

Who the fuck does she think she is?

"Sure," I find myself saying, "I'll stay!" Partly it's to piss off Dervla with her judgy attitude. Partly, it's something to do, other than go back to the flat on my own. But once we're on our own, I can't concentrate.

"So how are you finding art college?"

It's a good question. In St Catherine's art was mostly about painting, with some craft, like pottery and lino-printing thrown in, but in art college I'm getting a sense of a more experimental approach, as if everything I learned in school belongs to a distant, almost forgotten past. "It's funny, all I wanted was to get in, but I never thought about what it would be like once I was here. How about you?"

"I did a full time portfolio preparation course last year so that gave me an idea of what to expect. Dervla was on it too."

"Is that how you two know each other?"

"Yeah, she's shy, finds it hard to make friends. She asked me to look out for her."

Yeah, right, I can't believe he fell for that. Maybe Danny isn't as similar to Len as I first thought. Len could see through desperation in a second.

"Besides, my older sister was here a few years back, though she specialised in sculpture."

"It runs in your family, then, art?"

"It's the only thing we're any good at!" Danny shrugs. "I'm meeting them in town, my sister and her gang, for a drink. Do you want to come?"

"Sure, I'm not doing anything else."

Danny takes me to a popular pub in Temple Bar. His sister and her friends are there when we arrive and immediately make me feel like one of them.

"Hey, good to meet you! So you're in class with Danny?"

"What have you been doing so far?" Danny's sister asks us.

"Felice made this cool pendant in Vincent's metalwork class."

"Oh my god, Vincent! Is he still there?"

"He really liked her piece."

"That's good. Vincent doesn't hand out praise unless he means it!" She disappears into the crowd leaving a smile on my face. Sometimes I look at Danny and he's so gifted, I feel out of my depth and wonder if I should really be in art college. It had crossed my mind that Vincent was just being nice, so even if metalwork is not something I expected to shine in, it's a relief to hear his compliments mean something.

"Fame is fickle. They love you when you are on top but they only want to kick you when you are down." Mac Whitehead lurches in front of us, almost spilling his pint of Guinness over me. "Hey, it's Felice. Hi Felice!"

Normally, he ignores me, but tonight he can't help himself. He's always attracted to things he can't get, or things that look hard to get, so when he sees me with Danny, it sparks his curiosity. "I've quit the band," he tells me like it's exciting news. That's the thing about Mac. He makes you interested even when you're not. I lean forward to hear more. He drops his voice like he's sharing a secret. "I'm going solo."

I snort, not even trying to hide my laughter. Of course he is. Mac Whitehead solo makes so much more sense than Mac Whitehead in a band.

"I'm going to London to work on a new album. It's going to be big. This time I get to do everything my way. This time it's gonna work. It's gonna be huge."

"Who was that?" Danny asks once Mac has gone.

"Mac Whitehead, he was in this band."

"Oh yeah, he's the singer with Black Death, right? That was a great album."

Danny has a point. Mac came close before, and he's not washed up yet. Maybe he'll get a second chance in London.

Running into Mac disturbs me more than I care to admit. I have too much to drink and Danny insists on bringing me home. Letting him stay over feels like a mistake for a lot of reasons, mostly because I look at him and see Len. Also, he's in my class and I don't want any distractions or complications when I've barely been there a month, but I don't care.

If Danny leaves, I'll have to face the empty flat alone, with nothing to think about, except Kit in Paris with Tully. Or worse again, Mac Whitehead.

"So where's your roommate tonight?" he asks as I fumble with the key in the lock of the darkened cottage door.

"She's away for the weekend." I almost add that she's in Paris getting loved up with her rockstar boyfriend, but I don't. Whatever this night is about, it's not Kit or Tully.

"Oh, she's gone home." Danny's comment makes me the happiest I've felt all day. "Where's home anyway?"

"Drimshanra." We're inside at this stage and I flick on the light switch.

"The arse end of nowhere!" He mock-shudders. "I'd rather be here with you."

"Come here," I whisper, moving into his arms. Together we collapse onto the sofa.

Perhaps this isn't such a bad idea after all.