IT was toward the end of the school year, and the class of 2007 at Mackay State High was splitting up.
While some students were continuing on to complete their Higher School Certificate, others were leaving to take up apprenticeships or traineeships, and a few had accepted training jobs in the local mines.
But among the class was a relationship which had blossomed during the high school years, and was not about to be ended by paths going different ways.
Friends at school with Ben Barba and Ainslie Currie remember their love affair and tell it with a sense of excitement.
There were dozens of loved up couples in that year, but one stood out. "I just remember thinking 'I wish I was in love like them'," Dean Collins recalls.
Collins, a plumber in the northern Queensland coastal town, remembers the couple who were in the year above him at school.
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He says they were not the "it" couple, but just an unassuming pair who seemed genuinely in love.
"Don't get me wrong, all the blokes liked Ainslie, she was a top girl then and still is," Collins says. "But what I mean is they weren't that typical Ken and Barbie couple ... they were genuine people."
Barba's close-knit family welcomed Ainslie, and his parents Kim and Kenny relished the chance to have a young girl around, having five sons of their own.
The Barbas lived close to the township of Mackay, while Ainslie's family was out of town, meaning the Barbas' was the usual hang-out for the pair.
"They were one from the very beginning. Always together. From what I know, his family loved her and the same with hers (family)," Dean says.
In Mackay they were well-known, always out and about together, and Ainslie would always be there to support Barba when he played at the local footy park.
"They used to come here with their families ... they weren't 18 when they both lived here, so it would only be for dinner or something that you'd see them," says the barman at the Metropolitan Hotel.
"Whenever Ben's been home though lately, he comes in. It's always great to see him."
Early the following year, their relationship was greatly tested, when Barba moved to Sydney to pursue his football career and Ainslie remained in Mackay where she worked several part-time jobs.
It was an almost 20-hour car trip between them, or an expensive plane fare, which wasn't an option for either of them.
Barba was already working at a carwash in Sydney's southwest just to try to get ahead, and Ainslie didn't have money to burn either.
But they made it work.
"The phones got a work-out. And they would see each other every few months,"
Barba's mother Kim said in a recent interview.
"Ben was very homesick, it was a hard time."
A year on, when they could no longer live apart, and it was clear Barba's career was surging ahead in Sydney as he went from strength to strength with the Bulldogs, Ainslie packed up and followed him.
The couple began life together in a modest rented apartment in Campsie, where their furniture was mainly second-hand or hand-me-downs from people within the club who had a spare lounge or microwave to help them out.
It wasn't flash, but it was comfortable, and both knew it wasn't forever.
From there, Barba and Ainslie set up their lives and began a family. Barba was just 19 when Bronte was born, and at the time described it as "the best time in my life". A second daughter Bodhi followed less than 18 months later.
Life was good for the footballer who proudly says his daughters are his greatest inspiration. "I want to be able to give my girls everything I can ... I'm doing this for them," he told The Daily Telegraph in an interview.
In the football off-season, Barba and Ainslie would take their precious family back to Mackay, where locals recall seeing him play with the cute girls at local beaches, or chasing them playfully through a park.
However, such idyllic moments weren't always synonymous with their return to Mackay.
On New Year's Eve in 2009 police arrested Barba after he was witnessed abusing two female revellers in the centre of town.
When taken into custody, the footballer refused to give his address and told officers he was homeless. He also accused them of making the arrest on the basis of his skin colour.
After pleading guilty to public nuisance, Barba was fined $500, but his trouble in the tropics didn't stop there.
Last October - just a few weeks after Canterbury's grand final loss to Melbourne - he and elder brother Aaron were involved in an altercation at a Mackay pub.
Bulldogs officials received a report about the incident and demanded Barba apologise to the publican.
He did so the next day, and the pair ended up sharing an amicable counter meal together.
And that's the public side of Barba, the softly spoken young man who captured the faith of the rugby league public with his humble acceptance of last year's extraordinary accolades.
But Bulldogs officials have long observed an angrier version of Barba, who first showed his dark side by storming off the field midway through an under-20s curtain-raiser.
After a punch-up with former teammate Jamal Idris in 2009, Barba momentarily convinced officials he was not the aggressor but follow-up interviews with independent witnesses revealed otherwise and the pair were suspended for two weeks.
But the latest cover-up has been the most striking example of Barba's ability to mask his demons.
Despite lending him money to punt on poker machines and horses, not even his closest teammates had a true inkling of the extent of Barba's gambling addiction or party lifestyle.
The club only became aware of his affiliation with Cronulla-based party group Epic Bender Crew around Christmas.
Although concerned about a proliferation of social media photos depicting their star player chugging beers topless, Bulldogs officials decided against intervening because, in isolation, Barba's behaviour did not contravene the club's code of conduct.
But beneath the surface his life was falling apart, thanks mainly to rampant gambling sprees and the split with Ainslie last November.
Her friends recall cracks in their seemingly perfect relationship began to appear soon after their second child was born. Ainslie was struggling with the pressures of two young children, while Barba's football commitments consumed most of his time.
"She was coming home to her mum a fair bit last year ... I think she was pretty lonely with the kids and being on her own so much," a friend in Mackay said.
"Those little girls are the most important thing in the world to both of them," the friend said.
Barba slept alongside his eldest daughter for most of her life, so it's not hard to imagine his pain upon leaving the family's Caringbah home early last week. He requested two days off training to cope, but barely managed to play out the first half of last Saturday night's trial against Canberra in Goulburn.
After telling a Bulldogs trainer he was no longer interested in playing, Barba spoke with coaching staff on the bus ride back to Sydney that night. But instead of returning to his new rented home in the Sutherland Shire, Barba headed straight out to celebrate the birth of the first child of another Mackay prodigy, Sea Eagles halfback Daly Cherry-Evans.
Friends said Barba returned to Ainslie's home. He asked to use the shower and sleep off the big night on her sofa.
Rumours have since emerged that Ainslie ended up hurt - allegations which she has emphatically denied.
Ainslie issued a statement this week denying any involvement of domestic violence.
"I'm not physically hurt and I am dealing with a very personal situation that involves myself and my children," she told The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.
"I heard rumours floating around about my personal life and I have had family and friends ring to see if I am OK. For the record I am OK."
The Daily Telegraph has been told Ainslie and Barba have hidden out the week on the Central Coast, and were supported by Barba's manager Gavin Orr, who lives in Terrigal.
Barba's mother Kim made a lightning trip to Sydney to meet with Bulldogs officials.
Ainslie has also removed her Twitter and Instagram accounts, and switched off her mobile phone soon after the news broke of Barba's sudden suspension from the Bulldogs team.
It is all a far cry from the dreams of two high school sweethearts just a few years ago.
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