‘That goes without saying. But the travel agent didn’t have to let you change the name on the ticket. Now you’ve got someone to rub sun cream on your back without expecting to get laid, and someone to hold your hair back when too much Sex on the Beach makes you sick.’

‘I’m not going to have sex on the beach or anywhere else… Oh.’ I realized she was talking about the cocktail.

‘You never know. We might meet two nice boys.’

‘No boys.’ I swigged my drink, bubbles tickling my nose. ‘No boys ever again.’

I raised my glass, arm hovering in the air until she raised hers.

‘This will be the adventure of a lifetime,’ she said and we chinked. She turned out to be right.

But rather than flying away from something, I was flying towards something.

Towards him. To Adam.

I just didn’t know it then.

By the time the coach dropped us off at our hotel on the Spanish island of Alircia, it was nearly midnight but I still called Mum to let her know I’d arrived; she’d only worry otherwise.

‘We’re here.’ I tried to keep the sadness out of my voice but Mum heard it anyway.

‘It’ll get easier, Anna,’ she said, but I knew being alone hadn’t got easier for her. ‘Better with no one than the wrong one.’

‘I know.’ I did know. I’d accepted his proposal for myriad reasons: because of what I’d been through, was yet to go through, but none of them the right reason. The only reason.

Love.

I told Mum I’d speak to her soon. Nell and me hovered near the pots of exotic plants and flowers, waiting for the driver to empty the luggage hold; Nell plucked a bright pink bougainvillea and tucked it into my hair.

‘It’s so beautiful here,’ she exclaimed, but I barely registered the fairy lights twisted around the thick trunks of the palm trees that circled the pool. We wheeled our suitcases towards reception to check in. I was hot and exhausted. The gin I’d drunk earlier had left a residue on my tongue. A throbbing in my temples.

‘Check this out!’ Nell, typically, had abandoned her luggage and was sauntering into the bar. ‘Nightcap?’

‘I’m shattered.’ I was struggling with her case and mine. ‘I just want a shower and my bed.’

‘Spoilsport.’ She said it lightly but I felt a pang of guilt. I knew she’d used all her annual leave this year and had taken this time off unpaid to support me. The least I could do was let her have a drink.

‘I suppose because it’s all-inclusive it would be rude not to,’ I said.