I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. Happy slash anxious. I haven’t slept for a month, anticipating this holiday, the excitement churning my stomach and gripping my heart. Ten days in the same house – or gite, as I now know it’s called – with Jim. I’d only seen him once since the party night, over the breakfast table the next day, but I didn’t stop thinking about him for a second. I’d spilt my guts in green ink all over my diary, but that was the only place. There was a certain loneliness to it: I knew I couldn’t tell Lysette, which meant we were no longer spit sisters in quite the way we were, but it was a small price to pay for being in love. We flew out on Wednesday. I saw Jim before he saw me, slouching his way down the coffee queue at Gatwick, cool and handsome, a total contrast to the sweaty holidaymakers, passports clutched in clammy hands. His eyes were roving around like he was looking for something, and I couldn’t help hoping it was me. He was dressed in an artfully faded pink T-shirt, those leather strings wound around his thin wrists, his fingers playing with a handful of change.
