It first happened when I was twelve.

The blushing.

The giggling.

Noticing the way his hair fell over his eyes, his perfectly straight teeth and the way he only seemed to smile with one side of his mouth.

The huge crush on Crispin Holder.

The one Addie teased me about and Jules interrogated me about relentlessly.

The boy who didn't know I existed.

Then it happened again when I was fourteen.

His appalling jokes and my reluctance to laugh in case there was food in my braces. The quiffed hair and enviable eyelashes.

The crush on Isaac Moore.

The one Addie tried to play Cupid for and Jules advised me to avoid.

The guy who became besotted with someone else.

Except here they are - both of them. On the beach. With me.

"It's like Love Island, isn't it?" Jules cooes. She's got a cocktail on the go again and her bikini leaves little to the imagination.

"I've never seen it." I admit and shrug.

"Well, who are you going to choose out of the three of them? I know who I'd pick." She's practically quivering with excitement, her straw placed precariously between her lacquered lips as she eyes them up.

"The three of them?" I repeat. There's only two.

Crispin and Isaac.

And Harry.

He's grinning from ear to ear and wearing those damn canary shorts again. He pushes his hair away from his face as he comes to stand next to them.

What is he doing here? What are any of them doing here?

"There's no choice, surely?" Jules squeaks. "Choose, choose, choose!"

My eyebrows mash together to form a frown. What is she talking about? And why are they staring at me as if I'm about to dish up their dinner?

"Choose what?" I ask. Jules throws her head back and cackles once. It's high pitched and uncomfortable in such close range.

"Which guy do you want? Crispin, Isaac or Harry. Your three crushes."

Blood races to my cheeks in a matter of milliseconds; lighting them up in a furious shade of scarlet.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I snap defensively. Jules releases the straw and raises a single eyebrow.

"These are the only guys you've ever really shown an interest in. It's time to pick one." She says it so matter-of-factly that she seems almost annoyed that I didn't know already.

"But I've only just met Harry!" I exclaim. "I hardly know him. And as for Crispin and Isaac, that was forever ago. I don't know them at all anymore."

Jules huffs.

"You're so naive." She tells me. "I know you like him, it's right here in your head."

My hands instinctively go to my head.

"Who?"

"Harry, of course." She rolls her eyes. "He's different. You like different."

A thump.

Pain.

"Argh!" I cry and my eyes fly open, immediately blinking out fat droplets of water showering my face. The plane door is flat against my right arm, pinning it down in the sand in a painful hold. I try to pull myself out from underneath it but there's no movement - only the promise of a bruised bicep.

As my eyes focus beyond our camp, it's hard to believe that I'm in the same place as I was yesterday. The sky is murky; so dark that it's difficult to distinguish between it and the equally as sombre seawater. Overhead, the palms are swaying violently. So much so that I feel motion sick just looking at them. They lean over so far and so fast that I'm expecting them to snap and fall any moment, crushing us in the process.

And the rain. The apparent cause of the water droplets now soaking my skin, hair and t-shirt layers. Except it's warm.

Warm rain?

I roll my head over to where Harry lays; comatose and completely oblivious to the weather storming around us. His face is squished against his hands, positioned beneath him like a pillow and I can't help thinking that he looks about ten years old. His t-shirt is stained with wet blotches, each clinging to his skin like the first day we met.

"Harry." I say. Water rolls down over my nose and into the sand. He doesn't move. No sign of life. "Harry, wake up!"

His eyelids shoot open revealing weary green eyes. He stares at me blankly for a moment as if he's forgotten where he is and who I am. Then his eyes travel to my arm, immobilised in the sand behind me and he lurches upright.

"What have you done?" The words fall out of his mouth like mush. He hasn't even noticed the rain or the gail force wind battering our shelter.

"I haven't done anything!" I exclaim as he scrambles over to me and places his large hands on the door. He squints at the horizon and frowns.

"Where on Earth has this come from?" His attention turns back to me where I lay on my back, staring up at him and hoping I haven't got a double chin.

"Who the hell knows." I sigh. "Please just get me out of here!"

His lips twitch and he's suddenly grinning; all toothy with bright eyes.

"Oh well, I'm glad you're finding this so amusing." I huff and begin trying to wiggle my arm out myself. Rain water drips off of his hair and smacks against of the metallic shell of my captor. Harry pushes his hair out of his face and I'm suddenly transported back to my dream.

"Why are you blushing?" He asks, still grinning. I blush harder. "Am I embarrassing you?"

He has no idea.

In this moment, I thoroughly detest Dream Jules for invading my head. As if being stranded wasn't hard enough, I now have her to contend with when I go to sleep. Mind you, at least it's better than the repetitive drowning.

"No, it's just incredibly off-putting having you grinning at me like the Cheshire Cat while I'm trying to save my arm from amputation." I scowl.

Harry's laugh booms around us just as lightning strikes in the air. His grin falters as I scream and begin kicking frantically in the sand; sending a wave of grains into his lap.

I haven't survived this long just to be struck my lightning.

"Sheesh, Sarah - it's just lightning!" Harry exclaims but his hands immediately go to the plane door and begin pushing. His face scrunches up with the effort, turning just as red as mine had been only moments ago. I wriggle as he shoves and eventually feel the pressure release enough for me to slide my arm out from underneath.

Harry falls back on his bum in a soggy heap as I assess my arm. There's a thick red line where it was pressed against the metal but aside from that, it's relatively unscathed.

"Looks like you won't be performing an emergency amputation after all." I tell Harry with a smirk. He's panting in the sand in front of me, looking as though he's just run a marathon.

"You're such a drama queen." He manages to say and shakes his head, sending a water spray in my direction.

I open my mouth to respond with something witty but I'm interrupted by another strike of lightning tearing through the sky as if it's a sheet of fabric. I flinch and instinctively move closer to Harry whose top is now almost completely see through. There's a tinge of blue to his lips and I find my left hand absentmindedly reaching out to it.

"You're shaking." Harry says in a gentle voice, his eyes never leaving my quivering outstretched index finger.

"You're cold." I tell him, still pointing.

"We're both cold." He grabs hold of my hand and lowers it. "We need to move further in. We can't make a fire, everything is too damp. We've just got to find a way to get warm and long it out until this storm passes."

Storm.

The word makes my stomach churn. It's because of a storm that we are here in the first place.

I really, really hope the sky is empty of air traffic tonight.

"Ok." I say and pull myself to my feet. Everything feels heavier with the added weight of rainwater and every time I move it's like a soaked sponge has been rung out.

The rain continues to pelt down regardless as Harry leads the way into the trees. The sand is whipped up around our feet and the surrounding palms seem to practically bow down down to us with the pressure of the wind. Harry is a blur through the strands of my hair falling wildly across my face but I know we're making progress because gradually I can feel the intensity of our surroundings ease up.

I push my limp hair away from my face and find that Harry has come to a standstill. My feet seem to embed themselves in the wet sand as we stand looking like drowned rats next to the water pool. The water level has risen; now almost overflowing onto the surrounding bank and the surface is littered with palm debris. It seems like a lifetime ago that we were filling our water bottles here and splashing about like children in the Summer.

"What now?" I ask him, staring up from underneath my sodden lashes. Harry shrugs and pulls on the hem of his t-shirt. When he releases it, it pings back and glues itself to his stomach, revealing the dark spattering of ink underneath.

"We camp out here until it passes I guess." He heads over to the rock formation lining the back of the water pool and settles down in the sand, leaning his back up against them. I take a seat beside him and occupy myself by brushing clumps of sand out from between my toes. Now that we are stationary, being cold and damp is more obvious than ever.

"Well at least we can feel more at home." I try to joke.

Harry tilts his head towards me and frowns in confusion.

"Doesn't this remind you of a typical British Summer?" I add. "We can just pretend we're on holiday in the Lake District or something."

His lips twitch into a smirk and he leans his head back against a rock. "Have you actually ever been to the Lake District?"

"Uh," I blush. "No."

Harry chuckles. "I'll take you sometime."

I whip my head in his direction, surprised that he's suggesting we might see one another away from this godforsaken island. I want to ask him if he's joking but his eyes are closed. I lean my own head back against the rocks and imagine Harry and I hiking through the mountains of Beatrix Potter's country, hopefully eating something other than coconut.

At the thought of food, my stomach growls loudly.

"Gosh, you're so demanding." Harry jibes. I roll my eyes.

"Hey, it's not my fault that you're not providing." I retort and elbow him lightly. Harry opens his eyes and turns to me, completely deadpan. The bags beneath his eyes are like bruises and there's a thick scab now, stuck to his eyebrow where there had been a deep cut only days before.

"Oh my sweet, Sarah," he says in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "Haven't you heard? It's the 21st century. Women are in charge now."

I can feel my lips quivering with amusement as I stare back at Harry's poker face.

"Exactly." I snicker. "And I'm telling you to go and provide."

His right eyebrow quirks upwards with surprise but his facial expression doesn't change. I find myself staring into the viridian vortex of his eyes, trying to suss out what he's going to come out with next. My head is pounding and I'm freezing cold but I'm too invested in this ridiculous banter with Harry to do anything about it.

"And what exactly is it that you want?" He asks. His voice is low and his head is suddenly much closer than it was before. My breath hitches in my throat and my eyes widen.

"You're so naive." She tells me. "I know you like him, it's right here in your head."

Jules is here again, she always did have impeccable timing but I still can't wrap my head around what she's saying. I don't like Harry. I can't. I don't know him and this is just not the time. I need to focus on getting home and getting back to my family. There's no room for distraction here.

"Harry." My voice is barely a whisper as his forehead comes to rest against mine. I can feel his breath, hot against my face in contrast to the chill running through the rest of my body.

"It's ok." He tells me. His own voice is gentle, reserved.

"It's not."I squeeze my eyes shut. "None of this is ok, remember?"

"I want to make it ok." He says, not moving his head from mine. "I'm going to make it ok, Sarah."

My eyes pool with tears and Harry's nose bumps against mine as I'm suddenly overwhelmed with emotions.

Although I know that my main focus should be figuring out how to get home, I also know that wanting some sort of comfort during this tragedy must be completely normal. And it's completely normal for Harry to want it to.

Dream Jules was wrong.

It's not about 'liking' anybody.

It's comfort. It must be.

And if it's just comfort then I don't feel quite so guilty about wanting it.

I allow my nose to bump his in reciprocation as one of Harry's arms winds itself around my back. We're pressed up against one another now and the affects of sharing body heat is astonishing. Warmth spreads through me...through us both and suddenly it's easy to forget that we're malnourished and soaked through.

We seem to instinctively alter the tilt of our heads, now blowing gentle breath against on another's mouths.

"He's different. You like different."

There's a tingling sensation against my lips and it takes me a second to realise that Harry's have met mine. He presses them again and I kiss back; tentative, light kisses that hatch the cocoons and release the butterflies deep within my stomach.

Comfort, I tell myself. It's comfort.

I go to kiss him again but he pulls away, leaving my lips in an awkward looking pout. Instead, he pulls me into his chest and rests his chin on the top of my head. I can hear his heart pounding against his rib cage and I'm quite sure that mine is doing the same.

"Sarah." He says, so gently that it's almost soothing.

"Yes?" I reply and anxiously await whatever it is that he wants to tell me.

That what just happened was a mistake?

That he wishes he could take it back?

"You said that none of this is ok." He swallows uncomfortably.

"I did." My voice shakes as I give confirmation of my earlier statement.

"You said that none of this is ok but Sarah, you are more than ok to me."