He exhaled heavily and looked right at me with an intensity I hadn’t seen from him before. ‘You are absolutely all of those things and so much more. I don’t know what this is –’ he signalled that ‘this’ meant ‘him and me’ ‘– or how it can become anything else for two people who live in Chicago and Sydney …’

I am sure that everything I felt – all the confusion and hope and disappointment – was practically etched onto my face, because he stopped himself again.

‘Fuck! I really suck at this. I’m so sorry, Sarah.’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘What I do know is that you are someone very important to me, and I want to know you for my whole life. I don’t know what that can mean, or how we do it, but it’s the one thing I do know.’

And there it was.

The most perfect thing he could have said.

I was crying by then – of course I was – and I nodded my agreement. Then he stepped around the bed and enveloped me in his arms.

‘Is that okay?’ he asked, his breath soft against my neck. It was a simple question laden with everything we both felt.

I pulled out of the hug and sat on the bed. Fresh tears made their way down my cheeks, and I felt like I was a millisecond from dissolving into a fit of real boo-hoo-ey tears. ‘Josh, you’re my best friend and I’m really scared that after today I’m never going to see you again.’

Because he really was my best friend. I know that probably sounds weird because we’d only known each other ten days, but I couldn’t think of another person, besides my sister, who I was closer to. And, when you’re that close to someone, you want to hang out and share stuff with them, all the time, which is super hard when they live on the other side of the world.

So, maybe all the romantic stuff wasn’t the real reason I was upset. I mean, it could have been, but I wasn’t sure about all that – and there was James, who I also wasn’t sure about – but I was sure that this person – this smart, funny, warm, wonderful person – was my bestie.

Josh knelt in front of me and took both of my hands in his. ‘Don’t go getting all fatalistic on me like this is the end of everything, okay? We mean something to each other – we don’t quite know what it is yet, but we will work it out, and we will see each other again.’

‘Okay.’ I nodded, needing the additional affirmation.

‘And we still have the rest of today on the ferry. Let’s enjoy that – can we do that?’

‘It’s going to suck saying goodbye.’