He came up to me as I stood reading the itinerary in reception. He said later that when he tried to make conversation with me, I looked at him like he was asking for money. I used to be like that. Measured. Poised. Gilded.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ he said – giddy, lucky, asinine.

‘What, that it’s 11 a.m. and they haven’t given us coffee? Yes. Quite.’

He was taken aback. I smiled and said: ‘I know, I’m an entitled bitch, right? But that’s what this is: the Age of Entitlement. That’s what they’ll call it, years down the line. There’ll be a marble statue of a woman like me with an empty cup and a face on, defining the era.’

He laughed, and I felt my wings unfurl. And why not? I was a woman in my twenties. The whole world was mine to kill.

That first night in Egypt, the hotel laid out paper lanterns on the paths, leading the way to dinner. I noticed him at his table, sure, but there were other people to notice, too. I wasn’t limiting myself. I was infinite with possibilities.

It was a glam gig. The backdrop of the cliffs, the hotel carved into the soft sandstone; we were off on a jeep ride over the dunes the following day. The Michelin-starred chef had made a vegetarian dinner from the lodge’s sustainable, irrigated garden. It was so nice it felt dirty.

After dinner I took my mint tea to the quiet garden and Art followed me.

We got talking. Initially, our conversation took the tone of jousting. We were teasing each other, nudging each other, showing off, retreating, peeking back. That was my natural way, but I see now for him it was because he was coming from a point of hurt – albeit misguided, self-indulgent hurt. It didn’t take him long to tell me that he was contacting his most recent ex regularly to ‘take her temperature’. Otherwise, he said, ‘People become saints or monsters in your memory’. He’d been unfaithful to her, and she’d ended it.

I noticed he had a tattoo on his bicep. The trishula. ‘Are you Buddhist or Hindu?’ I said, keen to change the topic.

‘Neither.’

‘Just ethnically confused.’

I was pushing him in every puddle. But he deserved it. All white men you meet deserve it. He smiled. ‘The trishula means something to me. It symbolically destroys three worlds: the physical world, the past, and the mind.’

‘Handy.’

He sighed. ‘I feel like I’ve destroyed a few worlds lately.’ Another sigh. ‘I’ve been thinking of working in a soup kitchen, or something like that, to try and redress the balance.’

‘Noble.’

‘She won’t talk to me,’ he said, and looked genuinely hurt. ‘I can’t stop feeling bad about it. She’s crazy, but I want to help her.’

I said, ‘Can I level with you?’

‘I insist.’