"What are you chuckling about?" Aldytha asked Zama.
It was early on Sunday morning. Tenley had gone on her usual run, but the rest of us were content to laze in our beds and greet the new day with inertia.
I had actually slept well the night before. Having four people in a room, and not much floor space, meant that Nathan would have found it very difficult to sneak inside, even if he was a champion lock picker.
"There's some really funny stuff going around on Twitter," Zama said. "Oh, and Thamasanqa sent me a video on Youtube. I'm just getting to it ... "
She giggled, then passed me her phone.
"Maybe that's really what he had in mind when he asked you on a date," she said as Aldytha peered over my shoulder to watch the video.
It was Nathan Jake, in the varsity dump site, scratching helplessly through piles and piles of stinking garbage.
"Hey, you're awake," Tenley said as she walked into the room and flopped on her mattress. "What are you guys looking at?"
I handed the phone to her. She watched it, then whistled.
"Things are really bad," she said. "After his bodyguard pulled him away from the dump, he almost had a panic attack."
Part of me felt a sense of satisfaction at seeing his pathetic and futile hunt through the garbage. The other part felt a twinge of sadness. He used to be so confident, so strong, so marvellous.
"Maybe it's drugs," Zama said. "They all get into that eventually."
"Whatever it is, he won't eat or sleep," Tenley said. "There's a crowd outside his flat. They've sent for an ambulance."
"Let's go and see," Zama said, jumping upright.
I didn't really want to go. If he was suffering a meltdown, I would rather not be there to see it. It was just depressing.
The crash and burn of stardom; I supposed they all ended up that way eventually. I decided to go with the girls though, just in case he was only pretending to be out of action.
"Crap, I'm starved," said Tenley, coming back into the room. "These are all I could find."
To my horror, I saw that she was holding my hiding place.
"I'll open them for you," I said quickly. "You go and shower so long."
"Hey thanks," Tenley said, tossing them to me.
"No time to shower," said Zama. "Let's get a move on."
I just had time to grab the phone before Tenley took the box of biscuits back. I slipped it into my shorts pocket.
"Come on Cathy," Zama said impatiently.
I walked out of the room with the others. The phone should be safe with me. Nathan was probably tied up in one of those straitjackets on his way to the nearest psychiatric facility. I wouldn't have to worry about him getting hold of it again.
Tenley hadn't been exaggerating when she said that there was a crowd in front of Nathan's apartment. The ambulance arrived just as we did, but the crowd made it impossible to see what was happening.
I broke away, and went around the edge of the seething mass of people. I don't know why Nathan would choose to live on campus in one of the visiting lecturer flats, when he could have his pick of any hotel or mansion in the greater Durban area.
Maybe it was because security was tighter in the varsity grounds than in the outside world.
Everyone else was watching the front door, so no one but me saw the side entrance swing out slowly, and a familiar face glance furtively through the opening.
I darted behind a lady with a large red handbag.
Nathan slid the door wider, and rammed the baseball cap he was wearing further down over his eyes. It didn't hide the expression on his face as he glanced at the crowd. It looked like the world was coming to an end, and he was responsible for it.
The lady moved a little forward and I followed her, trying not to sneeze as the smell from the cigarette she had obviously just smoked started wafting off her jacket, and into my nose.
I squeezed my nostrils together, and kept my gaze on Nathan. There was something desperate about the way that he paused for a second by the door, as if he had to force himself to take the next step.
He's making a decision, I thought. And it's a difficult one.
He straightened his shoulders, and I knew that he had decided on his next move. He stuck something into the waistband at the back of his jeans, and covered it with his shirt. Then he closed the door behind him, and strode purposefully away from the crowd, and down the road that snaked across campus.
I recognised what Nathan had hidden in his waistband. It was a small but deadly handgun.
I stood in my hiding place behind the handbag, my mind a whirling morass of thoughts. Something was clearly very wrong in Nathan's life. Maybe it was drugs, or something else that was driving him over the edge. Whatever it was, it was something bad; something that he obviously thought could be solved with a gun.
The thought did cross my mind that he was coming to find and end me, but I dismissed that idea pretty quickly. The road he had taken led off campus; he would use a much more direct route if it were me he was after.
If he wasn't trying to kill me, who else was he going after with a gun?
Surely not ...
I forced myself to think about the most obvious conclusion. He was going off into the most deserted part of the campus with a gun. What if he was going to try and kill himself?
I have lots of faults; I am untidy, sometimes lazy, and my idea of a home-cooked meal is three Vienna sausages warmed up in the microwave. But the thing that gets me into the most trouble is my impulsiveness.
It would be very stupid of me to follow an armed and mentally-unhinged rock star into the unknown. Far better to stay in safety and forget what had just happened.
But I could never forgive myself if I read on Twitter that his body had been found, and I might have stopped him.
I had seen him as a shy fourteen-year-old wowing the audience at the Grammys. I had rejoiced when he won the award for Best New Artist, and then the following year for Best Album.
I had seen the first photo taken of him with a girl, his graduation photo, his school yearbook picture. I had read his first Tweet, and had become the fourteen-thousand-and-ninety-fourth person who had 'liked' his Facebook page. I had watched almost every interview of him that had been posted on Youtube.
Through his music, I knew what he thought about homework and bullies, the feeling he had when he won the sprinting race at school, and his passion for helping people who couldn't help themselves.
Nathan had been a part of my life since I was thirteen years old, and I had been a part of his, even if it was only from a distance - years of devotion could not be erased in a few days.
I had been crushing on him from afar, and had wished on a thousand stars that I could be a part of his life. Now he was in trouble, and I might be the only person who could help.
For a second, I toyed with the idea of alerting the adults who were in charge of the situation. There was his bodyguard, who presumably could be relied on to ... well ... guard him.
The paramedics were probably trained to deal with difficult situations. They might be able to talk to someone who was contemplating suicide.
It would take some time to get through the crowd though, and get to the people in charge; if indeed they were even letting anyone through. In the meantime, Nathan had already disappeared from sight, and if I didn't hurry, I would lose him altogether.
Even telling my friends about it would take time. I hesitated for a few seconds, swore and left the safety of the herd.
As I raced over the hill, I saw Nathan way ahead of me, covering the ground with long strides as if death itself were after him. I kept to the trees, and wondered where he could be going. He left the main road and took a narrow path into the woods.
This is stupid. Cathy, what are you thinking, I scolded myself. Curiosity was the spice of life, but it had also killed the cat. I had spent a rather large amount of energy trying to keep myself alive, and here I was walking straight into danger.
I told myself that I was safe as long as I kept him in sight. That way he couldn't sneak up on me. That wouldn't stop him from turning around and putting a bullet in me, but at least I had ruled out one murder method.
He walked through the gate and out of the grounds. The road went down into a shadowy valley, then swept upwards towards the ocean.
Nathan stopped and looked around. I had just enough time to dive behind a nearby tree to avoid being seen. Then he plunged into the luxuriant undergrowth that carpeted the valley.
I stood at the edge of the road and wondered what to do. Maybe I should go back, find Nathan's bodyguard and tell him about the gun.
I had almost turned back when I heard the gunshot.