I try to return Natalie’s grin, but I panic. ‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ I say, cutting her off and clambering off the bench, squeezing down the hallway towards the miniature restroom.

I lock myself inside and steady my hands on the walls to take deep breaths while my heart rate slows. I try to tamp down the feeling in my gut that Natalie is out to cause trouble. She has no reason to care about my name, I remind myself. She doesn’t care about me.

I unlock the bathroom door once I hear laughter, and I’m confident the conversation has moved on, but I can’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling that’s perched in my gut.

I get back from the bathroom in time to hear Vanessa ask us to pick our Great Barrier Reef ‘mascot’. We work our way around the table. Derek chooses a stingray, Natalie a seahorse, Pippa a surgeonfish, Andrew a clownfish (which got a laugh, because they each picked the Finding Nemo characters). I waffle on what to choose and land on a flounder because they blend in. When Hugh proudly announces that his mascot is a butterfly wrasse, I choke on a piece of black bean burger. Pippa slams a palm in between my shoulder blades, and it dislodges. I immediately turn beet red and murmur a quick ‘thank you’ to Pippa before staring at my plate. I refuse to look at Hugh, although I can tell by the way his shoulders are trembling in my peripheral vision that he is laughing. I clench my hands into fists under the table.

Pippa, sensing my agitation, pours me more water from the communal pitcher and hands me a full glass. In contrast to my mixed emotions about Hugh, most of which are extreme annoyance, I love Pippa already. She’s perceptive, friendly and has a shrill laugh that seems to be constantly echoing off the walls of the boat. She’s always next to Andrew but simultaneously gravitating to my side. When she sat at dinner, she put some much-needed space between Hugh and I, another notch in my reasons to like her company.

I have done my best to avoid him since he got me in trouble with Vanessa. Who, after the Derek drama had died down, pulled me aside to tell me that I ‘had to be more careful’, and that she ‘was going to have to recommend shorter dives if I couldn’t keep up’. I saw Hugh watching our interaction out of the corner of my eye. As far as I can tell, Vanessa didn’t give him the same lecture. I have never wanted to punch someone so badly.