‘Ali,’ Eva squeaks excitedly. She hurries to her feet, to greet Ali with a hug.

‘Save it, hoe-bag,’ Ali replies. ‘No girl who disrespects Girl Code is a friend of mine. Did you really think we could still be friends?’

Eva’s bottom lip pokes out like a little kid whose parents just told her off.

Girl Code might sound like a dumb teenage-girl thing, and maybe it is, but I don’t mind it. On the surface, it seems like a silly, childish term, but I’m all for anything that makes women be a little kinder to each other. Seriously, we’re up against enough, we can’t go turning on each other – especially not for a man. So, sure, I’ll adhere to Girl Code, if it makes the world a better place. And anyway, who wants a friend who could steal their man? Freddie is only my pretend boyfriend, and Ali won’t look twice at him. That’s a friend – that’s a woman.

‘What’s she doing here?’ Daniel asks about Ali.

‘What’s she doing here?’ she repeats, mocking his Yorkshire accent. ‘What’s she doing here?’

She nods towards Eva.

‘Ali is here on holiday,’ I tell him. ‘She’s staying in the hotel.’

It suddenly occurs to me that saying she’s staying with me will blow the cover right off my Freddie story, exposing the lie I didn’t tell in the first place. More than not wanting to look like a liar, the security of the Freddie tale gives me a confidence I wouldn’t have, if I were just here by myself, with the two of them loved-up next door.

‘I so want the three of us to be able to hang out again, like we used to,’ Eva says. ‘Now that things are all out in the open, can’t we be mature and figure it all out?’

‘We didn’t want to hang out with you before,’ Ali snaps.

Ali wouldn’t normally be so mean, and it’s absolutely not true that we didn’t want to hang out with her, we just didn’t see all that much of her because we weren’t that close – oh, and because she was banging my fiancé, I’d imagine.

It’s hard, seeing them both here together, seeming so in love, having a lovely holiday, all the while knowing what they’ve done and who they have hurt. If someone had done this to Ali I’d be furious too, and there’s no way I’d stay friends with someone who could do that either. If someone is willing to steal a man from someone else, how do you know they won’t do it again?

‘Did you pull some stranger on the plane too, then?’ he asks Ali angrily.

‘Not this time,’ she claps back.

‘Ali is seeing one of the barmen here,’ I say.

‘Since before you arrived?’ Eva asks. ‘How did you meet him?’

‘I stole him off my friend,’ Ali says. I can see the anger consuming her, puffing up her chest beyond anything a Czech surgeon could achieve.