Michaelmas term at Cambridge University is probably my favourite out of the three terms that make up the academic year. There's no huge pressure to revise for exams, it's scenically autumnal and temperate, and reuniting with college friends and fellow medical students after a summer apart makes it a particularly heart-warming time. If only all the people on my course were as amicable as my closest friends, it would be sickeningly perfect.

"He's such a bloody know-it-all," I complain to Judith and Saffron as we make our way to the Pathology department for a practical class, mentally reeling after a particularly complex neurology lecture. "What he doesn't already know about human anatomy probably isn't worth knowing, but honestly, I want to scratch his eyeballs out with a scalpel when he just keeps getting question after question right."

Of course I'm bitching about Al; who else pisses me off to this extent? He's just impossibly, annoyingly competent when it comes to dissection. Thank fuck I don't have to put up with him at any other time.

"Have you even seen his eyes?" Saffron says, scandalised. "Don't you dare!"

I give her a withering look. "They are just eyes. Spherical things we see out of. I daresay his are just the same as everyone else's; slimy on the outside and all squidgy in the middle."

"Honestly, Sunny; you must go around with yours shut!" Saffron laughs in a disbelieving sort of way.

"Look on the positive side," replies Judith hastily. "He's incredibly smart and he's an asset to your dissecting team rather than a hindrance."

"And he's cute! You get to stare at his beautiful face as he drives you mad with irritation," says Saffron.

"You finding him cute is driving me mad with irritation," I grumble. "He's a pretentious prick who can afford to fall asleep in lectures in my seat, because he already knows everything."

Yeah, okay; I'm still annoyed that he corrected me in front of everyone in the dissection hall during our first anatomy session together, and if I'm being honest, it still bugs me that he stole my seat and didn't have to face any consequences. I should probably get over it some time.

In the next decade.

"Anyone would think you secretly fancied him, Sunny," says Saffron slyly. "You're always going on about him."

"OH MY GOD, I DO NOT!" I shriek, causing a nearby student to choke on his Costa. "Retract that statement IMMEDIATELY!"

I would like to categorically state that I absolutely DO NOT fancy Al Potter. Not now, not ever.

Judith and Saffron simply start laughing. "You know, Sunny, I think Saff may be onto something here."

"Jude! I can't believe you're siding with Saff over this," I frown. "Besides, you know the only guy I'll ever have eyes for is Jonty Sullivan."

For the record, I've fancied Jonty Sullivan for almost a year. He's an Engineering student and the hottest boy at St John's college by a mile; partly because he has very little competition in the aesthetically-pleasing male stakes, but also because he's been blessed with the warmest honey-coloured eyes and head of silkiest brown hair I've ever seen on a guy. If that isn't quite enough, he's got the most incredible, charming, sexy voice that makes me go wobbly at the knees every time he says "Hello".

I can't quite remember the exact moment in time when my heart fell for him, but when it did, that was it. It now goes into a breakdancing routine every time Jonty so much as looks over in my direction. Unfortunately for me and my fibrillating heart, Jonty is way out of my rather modest league.

"Honestly, Sunny, you're flogging a dead horse with that one," says Judith drily.

"I know that. It doesn't stop me fancying the pants off him, though. And you could at least pretend I had a chance with him and be a supportive friend."

"Sunny, he has a girlfriend, doesn't he?"

"Yeah. A girlfriend from home that he's cheating on with someone else from college," I reply gloomily. "There's just no room in his timetable for me as well."

Saffron bursts out laughing. "Oh Sunny! You can do so much better than someone like that!"

"Hey!" I say indignantly. "I can still dream! In Sunita's head-world, Jonty has realised the error of his way and Sunita is the one he really wants."

I don't elaborate further, but Jonty is the centrefold of my daydreams at the moment. I think about him a LOT. I promised myself that I wouldn't after last year, when I had my poor, miserable heart sort-of broken by Jonty and a now ex-friend, who boasted about "sharing tongues with 'Sunita's Jonty'" at Cambridge's only nightclub, Mash, after snogging him there one evening. I excused Jonty, because of course he doesn't know about the teensy crush I have on him, but Aveline Proctor can burn in Hell for all I care.

"You are completely nuts," giggles Judith, shaking her head. "What about the 'meeting the parents' scenario? Has that cropped up in your brain yet?"

"No, I haven't got that far in our dream relationship. We're only at the kissing and coffee-shop stage," I reply soberly. "I'm not entirely sure how it's going to play out when I tell Mum and Dad that their daughter's arranged marriage is now off."

Saffron is now looking at me as though I'm completely insane. "Dream relationship? Kissing and…coffee-shop?"

"Well yes. I'm trying to be realistic here and have believable daydreams. Jonty and I have nights out at Mash too," I reply in a dignified way.

"Now you're just being weird," snorts Saffron.

"Was there ever any doubt over Sunita's weirdness?" Judith asks no-one in particular.

"If there was, there isn't any more."

"Ah come on; you guys must have daydreams like that too?" I say, feeling the need for some validation.

They look at each other. "Nope."

Crap. I've said too much and they really do think I'm odd.

Blushing, I hastily shut up. Under the pretence of receiving a text, I whip out my phone and open up facebook to scroll away my embarrassment.

As usual these days, my social media feed seems to be full of photos of people I don't know, who happen to be friends of friends. That, and mad adverts for weird-shaped loo brushes, Viagra and retirement plans.

I remember this time last year when I and some of my friends from back home were worried we'd struggle to find new kindred spirits at our respective Universities. It had taken me many years of mistakes through my childhood and teenage years before I'd been assimilated into a group during year twelve at school; a gang of other total misfits, as it transpired. Then, this time last year, we all left our known home territory and went our separate ways to different places of higher education.

For the first term of University, social media kept us all together and gave us comfort that we were not alone. Then slowly but surely, one by one, we all got adopted into new friend groups. By the time summer holidays rolled around, and we reconvened in our local pub four months ago, we were almost strangers to each other. Changes in location seemed to have turned us into different people; instead of being pieces of the same 'home team' jigsaw, we had become fragments belonging to other puzzles instead.

Now I'd say I'm much closer to Judith and Saffron than any of my friends back home, and I've only known both of them for a year.

"Do you two miss your friends from home as much as you thought you would, because I kind of feel guilty that I don't?" I muse.

"What on earth are you talking about now?" Saffron says incredulously.

"Are you thinking out loud again, Sunny?" Judith asks gently.

"Facebook friends," I reply, ploughing on regardless of whether anyone is keeping conversational pace with me or not. "Friends from school that you grew up with. I don't miss mine anywhere near as much as I thought I would. Do you?"

"What? Oh, yeah, no, I don't think I do," Judith replies. "Besides, it's easy if you've got a mobile phone to keep in touch with people you want to, isn't it? There's no missing out on anything with a phone and social media."

"Who doesn't have a mobile these days? Even my gran has an iPhone. She manages emojis and everything," replies Saffron.

"Not everyone has a phone, Saffy. You know Laurence, one of the St Catz medics? Well, he refuses to have one. Says having a phone is against his principles," says Judith matter-of-factly, "but he has very strange principles in general. I'm not even sure he knows what they are."

"So, do you miss your friends from home then, Jude?" I ask, confused by her first answer.

"Well no. Beth is still my best friend; whenever we meet up we just seem to start off again where we finished off last time, and I wasn't that close to Grainne, Sophie or Niamh, so I don't really miss them at all. I barely saw them during the summer break."

"Oh," I reply, momentarily saddened by the fact that Judith doesn't quite put me on the same pedestal that I put her.

"Considering that Charlie, one of my closest friends from home, is also at Cambridge, I don't think much has changed for me," replies Saffron. "We both keep in touch with Kelvin and Amanda. I suppose I don't talk to Trey as much as I used to."

"Hmm."

Maybe the people I once thought of as close friends were little more than acquaintances, then?

My mind flits to Katy who is studying chemistry at Warwick University, and Aruna, in her second year of a history degree at Lancaster University. I then think of Wojciech who, like me, is a medical student, except he's at St Andrews. Stuart is in Loughborough studying sports science and Jayne is busy with bio-veterinary studies in Edinburgh. I know what they're all doing and where, but that's all I know these days.

I certainly don't know who they're all doing. I wonder if Katy still thinks about printer boy from A-level Chemistry, or whether Wojciech's terrible taste in women has improved at all. And then my thoughts switch, as they often do these days, to a certain handsome, silky-haired boy by the name of Jonty Sullivan of St John's college. Before I know it, I'm delving into a lovely daydream where Jonty is visiting me in my home town of Rotherham, and I get to show him off to my old school friends and parade him around in front of all my (horribly envious) enemies.

"Earth to Sunita," mutters Judith, nudging me in the ribs, and I'm brought back down to the present moment where I seem to be blocking an entire stairwell because I've paused on the bottom step to enjoy a particularly glorious moment of my fantasy.

"Honestly, Sunita, you could find somewhere less inconvenient to stop and daydream about Jonty," laughs Saffron. "And yes, I know it must have been Jonty you were dreaming of, because you were practically drooling."

"Shush!" I squeak, my cheeks frying with embarrassment. "Don't tell everyone!"

"Relax. Everyone already knows," Saffron assures me with a pat on the back.

India and Yoshi stroll past us on their way up the stairs. India turns to give me a rather disparaging look, but Yoshi stops and glances back at me understandingly, as though he also gets caught out in blissful daydreams of his own sometimes.

"I've finished the mnemonic, Sunny," says Yoshi, waiting for me to catch him up. "I'm not sure I'm entirely satisfied with it, but I thought I'd run it by you. I can always write a new one if you think it's shit."

"Yoshi, anything is better than the last load of tripe we came up with," I reply reassuringly, falling into step with him as we walk along the corridor to the pathology teaching laboratory.

"You know, I think Yoshi likes you," whispers Saffron in my ear as I'm jotting down a list of differentials for sample B, which is a hideously knobbly bit of unidentifiable organ. Today in path lab, we're working in pairs and examining the gross and histological pathology of various diseased body tissues. As per usual, I'm muddling through and making most of our answers up.

"Of course he likes me. We're pun pals," I reply. I hold up the plastic pot containing sample C and wave it under Saffron's nose. "Does this look like some kind of carcinoma to you?"

"Pun pals?"

"Yes, pun pals. As in we both like making up puns," I say, adjusting the focus on the microscope to look at a slide of sample C more closely. "Saff, I think this must be a squamous cell carcinoma. Write it down on the sheet."

"You're not getting it, are you? Sunny, honestly, you can be so dim at times! I think he likes likes you," says Saffron with meaning.

"What? No. No, he doesn't," I laugh, shaking my head. "We're just friends. It is entirely possible to be friends with a bloke without having an ulterior motive, you know."

"You'd make such a cute couple," persists Saffron. "He suits you."

I hit her with my best side-eye. "Saff, I don't fancy him! We're just pun pals and anatomy lab partners, nothing more. Besides, no-one can replace Jonty in my thoughts at the moment."

"Honestly, I feel like drop-kicking Jonty and I've never even met him. How are you ever going to meet someone if you can't look past him?"

"Maybe I don't actually want a boyfriend?" I hiss, getting frustrated now. Where's Judith to back me up when I need her? "Look." I switch off the microscope lamp and glare at my friend. "I'm here to study medicine, not find a husband! That's Mum and Dad's job after I've graduated."

"Sunny, I can't believe you're going to roll over and accept an arranged marriage," snorts Saffron. "I can't think of a less likely candidate than you!"

"Why on earth shouldn't I have one?" I retort, picking up sample D and inspecting it, before writing down 'inflamed lung tissue'. "What do you actually know about arranged marriages?"

"Not much," she admits sheepishly. "I just can't imagine you settling for someone that your parents select for you, that's all."

Slightly annoyed, I position the slide for sample D under the microscope, switch on the lamp and focus the eyepiece. "Saff, I won't be forced into marrying anyone, if that's what you're thinking. That's not how arranged marriages work in my parents' society! Mum and Dad will introduce me to potential suitors, that's all. I can decline any that I don't feel compatible with. I can get to know any that I like the look of. It's a bit like Blind Date with a lot less 'blind'. Some of us even ask our parents if they'll help us find a partner."

I feel like I'm rambling on trying to justify something that I shouldn't really have to justify, especially as I have no plans to have an arranged marriage, nor do Mum and Dad have any plans to arrange one for me.

"It still doesn't sound like fun," murmurs Saffron guiltily. "Anyway, I'm sorry - it's none of my business really. What did you get for sample D, by the way?"

"All I could see on the slide was patchy inflammation of lung tissue with lots of neutrophils," I reply. "I think it's acute bronchopneumonia." I pause, trying not to dwell on the conversation we've just had. "What did you put for sample B?"

"Nothing," she replies. "I couldn't work it out. It just looked pimply and horrible."

"Hey you two. Care to compare notes?" Judith, clutching her course handbook, walks over from where she's been sitting next to one of her fellow college medics. "What did you get for sample A? Shiraz and I put pulmonary embolism."

Saffron and I look at each other. "We thought it was heart failure," I shrug.

"Are you sure?" Judith asks doubtfully.

"Nope," Saffron and I reply in unison.

"We guessed sample A and had no idea on B. Well, Sunny guessed A," adds Saffron.

"We put TB for sample B," says Judith. "Granulomatous lesions and giant cells are apparently classic features of Miliary Tuberculosis, or so Shiraz says."

"Oh, of course," I nod. "That makes sense - thanks, Jude! It's just sample A we're not so sure on now."

"Sample A is heart failure."

I snap around in surprise. Al, sitting on the bench behind us, has his attention firmly fixed on his microscope and he's not showing the slightest bit of interest in our conversation, but I'd know that bored, snobbish drawl anywhere now.

"You were right with your guess," he adds, still not looking up.

"Hang on; how do we know you're right?" Saffron strolls seductively over to Al's bench and leans against it, smiling flirtatiously.

Al glances up in a disinterested fashion at Saffron who is practically draped across his work space, before averting his eyes and focusing on his microscope slide again.

"Because he's always bloody right," I reply shortly. I tug on Saffron's lab-coat sleeve and pull her back towards our table, keen to intercept before Al turns his condescension on my friend, or she embarrasses herself further. "Come on, Saff. Let's finish this lab session and go."

I turn away, intent on continuing with my own work, but not before I catch the shadow of a smile crossing Al's face.