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I went a little crazy over that dinner. I managed to partition my mind off neatly, so that the only things I thought about were work and looking totally perfect. Coldly perfect, in fact. I don't know whether it was a subconscious manifestation of my desire to keep everyone at a distance, but the dress I found was an ice-blue, full-length gown which made me look the part of the ice queen. 

And then I added to it, making myself icier with a cascading crystal necklace with wires so thin you couldn't see them - it looked like my skin was sparkling - and crystals twisted into my hair, which I piled up and secured rigidly. I matched the colour of the dress with a palette of breathtakingly expensive Dior colours that ranged from dark blue right up to shining, glittering white and spent most of an hour applying them in a smooth blend from dark inside my eye to pale white above and outside it. The only dark features were my eyeliner and my mascara. 

The overall effect was about as warm and approachable as most people thought I was. In fact, if I had blonde hair instead of brown, and then ventured outside in a snowstorm, I might have actually vanished. The thought was both funny and slightly scary; scary because for a milisecond, it actually sounded tempting.

"You need to get a grip," my reflection told me. I believed it. It looked like it meant business. I settled for picking up my purse in a grip like a vice and holding it like that the whole way into the waiting cab.

The whole place shone. I've always been regretful that MIT is largely modern, with very obviously Architecturally Designed buildings with weird angles thrown around the place. When I was in High School, I dreamed about a neo-gothic campus with huge trees; and then when it came to it, I chose the place that was going to give me the best chance of getting hired by NASA. Which was still pretty small, all told, but I've always believed it's better to aim high and fail spectacularly.

The newly-completed Manners Building had something about it, though. Maybe it was knowing that it had come in at twice the budget it was supposed to, or the fact that it was made almost entirely of glass. And maybe the dark blue evening with stars just appearing added something. But for just a minute, as I walked into the foyer where the fifty or so guests there were being served champagne in glittering glasses, I could imagine that I was an ice queen who'd finally found a palace. Which just goes to show quite how bad a week it had been.

There were a few people there that I knew, and a lot that I didn't. I recognised Marcie from my coding class, and a clutch of people from the film society. They were the kind of people I usually gravitated towards: the kind who were friendly enough, but not natural socialisers; the kind who always kept you at arm's-length.

But even as I smiled at a few of them, I didn't approach yet. I wanted to keep that fairytale feeling for a while longer. So armed with a glass of champagne, I wandered to the emptier side of the hall and spent a good five minutes doing nothing but stare up at the incredible light feature overhead. 

It looked like somebody had spilled a metric ton of tiny white bulbs and frozen them in what looked like a swirl of ice as they fell. Parts of the ice-glass sculpture were clear, and others were a warm yellow, which lent colour to the lights, too. I didn't even notice anyone coming up to me.

"Do you think yellow ice is like yellow snow?" a thoughtful voice said from over my shoulder. "Because someone should probably tell them before spring hits."

I didn't need to recognise the voice. I knew who I was going to find when I turned around. It made my heart sink and race all at the same time. 

"Wow," I said, to the football star. "Nobody ever mentioned you were a patron of the arts as well as a jock. I would have made more of an effort earlier."

He gave me a slow smile. "I have hidden depths. Which goes for you, too. That make-up job is flawless. You'd never know you have a bruise the shape of a football under there."

I narrowed my eyes at him. He was making it pretty easy to be angry with him. But somehow it wasn't the helpful kind of angry. 

"And you're here why?" I asked.

"Well, you know. Scholars dinner, here on a scholarship..."

Damnit, was my main thought. I should have thought of that. But sometimes I forget that not all scholarship students are the academic kind.

"No," I countered, determined not to show that I was disconcerted. "I mean why are you here. Within a ten-metre radius of me, when there's a whole room to stand in."

"Ah, I see," he said. He didn't seem even slightly bothered by how prickly I was being, or by the way I was giving him a dead-eyed stare that obviously wished him gone. "I'm new here, so when I saw you hanging around, I thought, 'Hey, great. A friendly face.'"

I had to turn away. It's impossible to keep sending fuck-off signals when you're trying not to laugh. 

"I must have forgotten to bring mine," I muttered. 

"It's ok, I can show you how it's done," he offered. "There's this thing people do called smiling..."

He tailed off because, at that point, Marcie came over with a wiry, tanned guy I didn't recognise. She looked pretty in a pale pink dress that fitted her curvy frame well, and had curled her hair. Only the glasses she was still wearing made her recognisable as the self-proclaimed super-nerd of gaming.

"Hey, Helena! Sorry for interrupting, but - oh my God, you look amazing." And she really seemed to mean it, too. 

"So do you, Pretty Pink thing." Unbelievably relieved to see her, I leaned in to give her a hug, which clearly took her aback. We weren't really at the hugging stage of friendship. I couldn't help looking at the new boy as she half-responded. 

"So you do know how it's done," he said.

Marcie gave an awkward laugh, and then immediately introduced her friend with an abrupt wave. "This is Modelo. He's on the computer science program at Harvard." 

I gave him a smile. "Helena. Nice to meet you. Are you a gaming friend?"

"Right on," he said, and gave a slightly snorting laugh. It made me smile more warmly. Another geek who could talk about his favourite subject and fail to notice everything else. 

There was a brief silence, and then the new boy leaned forwards as if I'd introduced him and said, "Joe-Moe."

Who the hell is called Joe-Moe?  was my principle thought. 

I raised an eyebrow at him, but he looked blandly back. And then I realised I was giving him too much attention and looked away, at the gradually swelling crowd. A trickle of people were making their way upstairs to the gallery, where the dinner itself was. Which meant I was nearly free to get away from this persistent, frustratingly handsome, probably-not-even-that-smart football star.

I heard Marcie introducing herself, and then adding, "So are you visiting for the weekend?"

She thought he was my boyfriend. Why does everyone think I have to have a boyfriend? I wanted to wave my hand in her face and tell her I existed in my own right. 

"No no, I'm a student here, I promise," he said, with a laugh. "I just transferred from Princeton."

"Wow, they must really have wanted you. What's your major?" Marcie asked, curiously.

"Ball skills," I muttered, just before Joe-Moe said, "Earth Sciences. As far as I know. Haven't made it to all that many classes yet."

Marcie laughed, while I sighed. "Who's the cool kid?"

"Do you want another glass of wine?" Marcie asked, quickly, probably trying to defuse the situation before it became an actual argument. 

"Ah, don't worry. I think we're heading up to eat." 

I threw the rest of the champagne back, and started to move off towards the stairs. I was trying incredibly hard not to look at the new boy, but I was intensely aware that he had taken a few quick steps after me. 

"I'll follow you on up," he said, as he drew level. "I'm sitting next to you."

I know people think I don't care what anyone thinks. It's all because of the sarcastic comments, the looking daggers, and the sighing. But I do care, really. And I cared a lot about what he was thinking when I answered,  "You have got to be fucking kidding me."