Have you ever been in love? Do you remember the first time you felt that ache in your chest, sweet and sore at the same time? Was it true love? How did you know?

This is the first time I've ever felt like this. It's two in the morning and I can't sleep, can't stop thinking about what happened today and what might happen tomorrow. It's so new, so intense, but I can't trust it, not yet.

I can't say who it is, but I'll tell you what happened.

We were all sitting together, having dinner. There was all this pasta with a watery tomato sauce and everyone was just pushing it around their plates and feeling sorry for themselves. Everyone except Zac, who was smiling that self-satisfied smile of his.

"What are you so happy about?" I asked him.

"Mmm? Oh, it's my favourite," he said, poking at his plate of slops with his spoon.

"This is your favourite?" Maz spluttered, spraying tomato sauce over the white, plastic table. Jamie followed suit, spraying his own sauce in agreement.

"Stop it," I said, glaring at Jamie. "The staff will come."

Jamie forgets that the staff watch us, that they'd swoop in at the first sign of trouble and drag us all off to our rooms. He's always too busy trying to get on people's good side. He couldn't look me in the eye, so he just put his head down and went back to pushing pasta.

"Lighten up, Sophie," Zac said, still smiling. "This place is what you make it."

"Easy for you to say," Maz said, glowering at him.

"It's a state of mind," he continued. "Take this gloop, for instance. I could sit here and be all, 'I hate this gloop'. Or I could think about how much I love my mum's lasagne."

"That's stupid," Maz said. "You're still eating gloop."

"Oh yeah? Try it out. I'll help you." Zac ate another spoonful of the sloppy pasta, really savouring it this time. "OK, let's go. Look at me, my eyes, look at me, look at me."

Zac got quieter and quieter, until he was just muttering and staring at Maz, holding his right hand out to her plate. His face was so serious, so different from the smug look he normally has.

"Very clever," Maz said. "It looks like lasagne. But I know it's still slops."

"Try it," Zac urged. "It's delicious."

Maz scooped up a pasta tube with her spoon and put it in her mouth. Her eyes went wide immediately. She chewed and chewed, then got a bigger spoonful and did the same again.

"That is amazing," she said, between mouthfuls. "Sophie, you've got to try this."

"One at a time, girls," Zac said, the smile returning. "Are you ready, Sophie?"

I nodded. I could feel the excitement in the room. Maz, Jamie, even Tom in the corner, everyone was watching me. Zac put his game face on again and started waving his hand at my pasta. Only, when I looked down, it wasn't the usual gloop any more. It was lasagne.  I took a bite. It wasn't just lasagne, it was really, really good lasagne. The cheese on the top was so thick and chewy, the white sauce was so tasty I could feel it in the corners of my mouth. It wasn't swimming in grease or garlic. It was just right.

But it wasn't real. It was Zac, messing with my head.

"You going to do this every meal-time?" I asked, putting my spoon down. "For all of us, one at a time?"

"Make it worth my while," he said. The cocky smile was back and the lasagne was gone, but I could feel his disappointment piercing the buzz of excitement in the room. He'd wanted to impress me. That disappointment was real, not the smug look on his face and not his mum's lasagne.

"Can I try?" Tom piped up from the corner. It must have been the first time he'd said anything at the dinner table since he got here.

"It speaks!" Zac said. Jamie was quick to laugh with Zac, as usual. The tone of the excitement in the room was different now, but it was messy. There was a kind of anxiety and something else. Something I had felt before and didn't like.

Before I could say anything, Zac had gone to work. Tom didn't react much to what he saw, but when he put his spoon in his mouth, I knew exactly what Zac had done. Tom spat the pasta out immediately and went to grab for his water, but then thought better of it and ran from the room. Zac was laughing his head off, until Maz threw a plate of pasta at him and went after Tom. Poor Jamie didn't know what to do, so he just went really still and quiet.

"That wasn't lasagne, was it?" I said to Zac.

"What do you think?" he said, picking bits of pasta off his face. With no-one to share his joke, Zac's laughter dried up. "Like I said, this place is what you make it."

He nudged Jamie, who glanced at me before following Zac from the room. I could hear the staff outside, Maz bellowing at them and Zac laughing all over again. A scuffle broke out, I don't know who was involved, but one of the staff poked his head into the room and told me to stay put. He closed the door and locked me in the dining room alone.

What was left hanging in the room was hard to process. Anger, glee, humiliation and... this new thing. Stronger than everything else, now that I felt it, like the after-burn off my dad's whiskey. Better than Zac's lasagne, it didn't just fill my mouth but my whole chest.

Even now, hours later, this new feeling is still with me. But is it real? Is it mine? Is it love?