He had worked himself up into a bit of a lather. He took a deep breath, blew it out noisily and took a big bite of his breakfast. While he chewed, I focused on my own breathing – my own breakfast forgotten, sitting on the deck getting warm.

Everything Josh had said – all of it – articulated precisely what I felt. Well, not the part about it being a whim to come on the trip – I had been planning it for months – but everything else. I had gone on the trip thinking it was about me – what I would see – what I would do. I had no idea there would be people I would come to love in a matter of days. People who would bring out the best in me, parts I had hidden behind defiant independence and a giant ‘fuck off’ to any guy who came near me.

I realised, while sitting on the bow of a boat in my pyjamas as Greek Island commuters boarded a bus to work a couple of metres away, that I loved Josh. And I don’t mean that I was in love with him – although I may have been – I really couldn’t have said for sure at that precise moment. But I did know I loved him – as a dear and treasured friend, as a person who I would know my whole life. And like he had said, ‘no matter what happens’.

I couldn’t predict the future any more than he could. All I could do was live the moment I was in. The alternative was inauthentic – it was pretending. And I was done pretending. I was done making nice and keeping my distance. I was done being a giant wuss, too scared to get out of my own way.

I snapped out of my reverie. Josh was watching me. He had this kind of amused-but-not-smug look on his face.

I laughed out loud. And he joined in.

‘You’re a total dork, you know that?’ I asked, rhetorically.

Still, he answered me. ‘I do know that, yes.’

I nudged him with my elbow as I picked up my bowl and took a bite of my muesli. He nudged me back, and I smiled. Then we finished our breakfast without another word or any awkwardness. I had my friend back.

After breakfast, Josh and I retreated to our respective cabins to dress for a day out. I had just picked up my flip-flops when Hannah stirred in her bunk.

‘You going out?’ she asked, rubbing her eyes and squinting at me. We’d reversed our roles from the previous morning. I couldn’t resist wiggling my eyebrow at her this time.

‘How’s the head?’ I asked, knowing from the look of her it was grim. She groaned dramatically and threw her arm across her eyes.