I have officially done it. It's all booked. There still would have been a chance to change my mind, but my temporary girlfriend is far wilier than that and made sure I sent an e-mail to my mother telling her when I was arriving home. Now I really can't back out.

Before I even knew what was going on Mom had arranged for the charter to bring me to Memphis rather than LA. She said my grandparents needed to see that I was alive, for one thing, and for another she said that if we were going to have awkward talks they'd probably go better from the comforts of home. Normally I might object to her meddling in my plans like that - I'm near enough thirty, she is not my boss any more - but in this case I kind of agree with her so I'll let it slide. I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to it, but I'm not dreading it so much. It'll all depend on how well I can explain that the conclusion may sound simple but it really was difficult enough that I needed all these weeks away to work it out. Now I'm really glad I bought them all presents.

Addy's been really good about this whole thing, I'm trying to dream up some way to thank her. I half wondered if she'd get hurt by me saying I wanted to go home, but she just hugged me and said she was proud of me for working through everything. Then we went for a hike. There wasn't even the smallest sign that she was sad about me going, which is a relief. As much as I like her and as great as these past few days of us being together have been, I was always going to have to go home and I have enough issues surrounding that without worrying about upsetting her.

She's gone out to dinner with her folks and her errant brother, finally returned and claiming he's never going to see this girl again despite being AWOL with her for all this time. Addy and I made up a new sport in response - synchronised eye rolling. Mike quickly worked out I'd been staying over in the mean time, and I think he was disappointed that his own much more ridiculous situation prevents him from mercilessly teasing his sister about ours. I wound up cooking for myself in the apartment and then coming back out to the beach for a sunset swim. I'm going to miss this place; I've become a serious beach bum in my time here.

"Hey, Dante!" I call out as I spot him jogging back up the beach with his surfboard in hand. This guy never seems to be out of the ocean when he's not working, but this was a bad time to be looking for swells.

"Hola," he says awkwardly, planting his board in the sand for a second and leaning on it. He looks tired, I wondered how far up the beach he went.

"No luck with the waves, huh?" I ask.

"Nah, it was wishful thinking."

An uncomfortable silence settles in for a few seconds, and it's only politeness that stops me pulling a face. I don't know what their problem is with me and Addy but they can just save it. Still, it gives me a chance to gaze out to the horizon. The sky is a fantastic shade of orange, streaked with red; there are far more clouds lingering that usual but they serve only to punctuate how spectacular it all is. The water's almost glittering in the last few rays of the sun, determined to put on a show. You'd never see this kind of sky in LA with all that smog. Baywatch lied about that.

"Look…" Finally I decide to take the bull by the horns. Can you explain to me what everybody's problem with me is? One minute you're all nice as pie to me and the next everybody's avoiding me. And avoiding Addy, too, which seems kind of shitty since she's your friend and all."

The look on his face is pretty pained, and it immediately confirms everything I've said. It also tells me that Dante's not especially happy about it.

"Look, I have no problem with you. You seem like a good man… but you're only here for a short time and it's not, how you say, worth having a problem with my friends for you."

Fuck, I knew it. Also, I now see what Addy means about having to teach them how to speak English like English people do; it's not incorrect but it sounds overly structured. As God damn irritating as I find this whole thing, I can understand where Dante's coming from. In his position I wouldn't consider me worth the hassle either.

"But why do they have a problem with me?" I throw my hands in the air, pushing one over my wet hair.

From his expression, I'd guess that Dante is weighing up whether or not it's worth telling me this and whether or not I'd make an issue with it. I can't do much about that, other than try to make my posture as relaxed as possible so he doesn't think I'm about to go beat somebody's face in over it. He's fiddling with the end of his ponytail, and looks kind of effeminate doing so.

"You know our friends have been trying to match Addy with Antonio, yes?"

"Yes. She's not happy about it."

"Neither is he," Dante informs me. "He likes her but he knows she doesn't feel the same and he finds what our friends are doing… what's the word?"

"Embarrassing?" I guess purely from how I'd feel in the situation.

"Si, embarrassing. But they will not stop and they find her friendship with you very annoying. They saw, I think before you did, that it would lead to romance and they are angry that Antonio is passed over for a tourista when you will of course leave soon."

"But if she doesn't like him anyway, what's the difference?"

"I have asked them this. Nobody has given me a good answer," he says wryly. "I'm sorry, amigo, I would have liked to spend some more time surfing with you and Addy but I like my life with no problems more."

"It's okay, I understand." I scratch at my head with a sigh. "But you know they're all really hurting Addy over this, right? She hides it, but they're really upsetting her."

A sorrowful look passes over his face and for a moment I think about telling this guy to get to LA. I bet they'd kill to have somebody with his features on the books, you can just see him playing the Count of Monte Cristo or some swashbuckling Latin hero or something. "I know. I hope that once you have gone they will stop. The chicas are as unhappy as I about it."

"Well, you can tell them I'm leaving next week; that ought to make them happy." If I sounded slightly bitter, it's because I am. I thought skipping high school for a music career meant skipping this type of bullshit too.

"Not because of them, I hope?"

"No." I shake my head and droplets of water are still falling from it. "It's just time to go home. I stayed too long as it is but I love this island."

That puts a smile on his face. "Maybe you can come back next summer. They should have forgotten it by then."

I laugh. "Maybe." Actually, I might suggest this place to Mom and Dad because I bet they'd love it.

Me… I don't think I will come back, or at least not for a very long time. As much as I've loved it here and it's beautiful and I could probably be convinced to never leave, this island belongs to a certain time and place in my life and coming back here just wouldn't be the same. I've been marvelling over how well Addy and I get along and how easy everything's been, but I've come to realise that's because it has an expiration date on it. She and I are never going to have the chance to disappoint each other because I'm only here for five more days. All I'm going to remember is sun, sea, sand and a great little summer romance; it's been idyllic, but it's not real life. If I stayed here and carried on whatever it is I've got going with her, eventually we'd fight and let each other down. That's how real relationships go - they can be great, but never perfect.

This little slice of life with Addison has been perfect and I think it deserves to stay that way. I don't belong here. The more I think about it the more I think I met her for a reason, she's shown me this whole other side of myself that can be relaxed and doesn't have to work at full speed all the time, but I need to go home and this thing would never work long distance. I'd like to remember it as the blissful little piece of heaven that it's been instead of wrecking it trying to stretch out its life span or recreate it next year or whatever. It'd be a great big lie if I said I haven't wondered what would have happened if we'd met in a situation more conducive to a real relationship though. The phrase 'in sync' has been ruined for me forever since I now can't say it without it being some big pun, but she and I have been very much that way for these past few weeks. She gets me and I get her and we get along. It's all been so easy, and I guess in a way I will be kind of sad to go.

Still, leaving feels easier than I thought it would. This trip has certainly done what I wanted it to, but now it's time to go home - a few more days to enjoy paradise and then back to normality. I'm even kind of looking forward to it.

***

"Hey Timberlake!"

I hear the now familiar voice approaching and it startles me. I look at my watch and I'm surprised - It's only been a couple of hours since I came out here, I wouldn't have expected her back for at least another two, one at the very least. Does she not like her parents or something? That was a very short dinner.

"Hey," I say in surprise. Addy bounds up to me and flings her arms around my waist. Obligingly I return the hug and add a small kiss for good measure. "You're back early."

"Dad has an early meeting and Mum wasn't feeling too great." She shrugs carelessly. "What are you doing out here?"

"I had a swim after dinner. What are you doing out here?"

"I was walking over to the apartments to see you," she says brightly. "Guess you saved me a walk. Good job too, I reckon we're in for a storm."

"Really?" I sound sceptical, but that's only because it's rained all of twice since I've been here and neither of those showers lasted for more than ten minutes. I can't imagine this place having a real storm.

"Yep," Addy replies with a critical eye up at the sky. Although the sun has set, it's still surprisingly light. "There's a lot of cloud cover and we're probably overdue for one. They're great, the skies open for a night or a day and it beats it down like nobody's business, but it kind of clears the air and stops it being so humid for a while."

"Well how soon do you think it's coming?" I ask. I have no desire to be a lightning rod.

"We'll be tucked up in bed long before that happens," she assures me as my arm around her shoulders tugs at her to get her moving back towards the apartments. I don't care if she stays with me or wants me to stay at the villa; I just know I'll need more clothing than my swim trunks.

We walk along and for a few moments it's in companionable silence. Short though our fling has been, we've now developed a standard walking along pose where she slings her arm around my waist and I throw mine around her shoulders. Even holding hands seems like too much space in a weird way - not that we haven't, but when we walk we're usually gassing away and it seems more confidential, more conspiratorial between us when we walk with our arms around each other like this. It's like the world is blocked out and nothing we could ever say can reach outside ears. Clearly that's not true, but it's just the feeling it brings. It's about talking as much as walking.

"So, guess what we were talking about at dinner."

"Let me get the paranoia out of the way first and check it wasn't me?"

Addy lets out her sunny laugh. "No, it wasn't you. Mike apparently managed to stop shagging the woman he calls psycho long enough to make some headway on the England thing, so he's off for his interview a couple of days after you go."

I still don't understand how Mike can insist this chick is a psycho yet keep running back to her. It's just weird and defies all kinds of logic and common sense. "That's great, good for him."

"Yeah, well," she says in a tone that tells me Mike wasn't the point of this. "Dad was asking me what I wanted to do about the mortgage and I put my exchange idea to him and Mum and they loved it, said it was time I did some travelling and Dad's more than happy to keep the house for me until I get back, rent it out in the mean time to pay the mortgage and then when I get back it'll just be about getting a room mate, assuming Mike gets this job. Looks like I'm going for it."

"That's awesome, babe, congratulations!"

I plant a big kiss on her temple, genuinely pleased for her. She's always been careful to keep my little depression issue at the centre of things, hasn't wanted to offload her shit on me in return, but I really do get the feeling that she needs to experience life off this island as much as I needed to experience life on it. Not forever, I think she loves it here too much not to come back, but it'll do a world of good for her.

"Yeah. I've still got time to put in a late application, so long as I get on with it, so hopefully New York here I come."

Believe it or not, I'd actually already considered this scenario in some of my 'what if' imaginings. I own a restaurant in New York, I'm there often enough… but I won't mention it to her. If it was LA and she was going to be around all the time things might be different, I might offer her my number so we could catch up some time, but NYC is still too far. I've already made up my mind on this one, we need to end here. Besides, I'd put money on her neglecting to ask for my number just as I'll neglect to offer it. She's been through this before; I think she knows how this works better than I do.

"That's really great, I'm so proud of you."

I stop to wrap her up in a big hug, and I get a breath of her musky perfume. She almost smells like night, in a way - darker than she does in the day time. Her shoulders give a little shrug as she squeezes me back, and though she says nothing she's giving off this little glow that tells me I gave her the reaction she was hoping for. I'm not just being positive because I know it's what she wants to hear, I really do believe that she needs this.

She puts herself down and says she's not ambitious or whatever, but I think she wants more than she admits to herself. She's not like me, she's never going to need to make herself high powered and best of the best to feel like she's accomplished what she set out to achieve, but I do know she's got more in her than this island can cater for. I'll be happier to leave knowing she's got all these plans and is reaching for this, I think it'll be great for her and ultimately when she gets back here she'll be more fulfilled for it. Although she's told me she's suffered depression or whatever in the past I can't imagine her being less than the happy go lucky, contented little chick that she is now. It makes me feel good to know she'll be staying that way.

"Maybe I can see if all those other Yanks are as much of a pain as… uh oh."

Her ribbing of me is interrupted by the most incredible crack of thunder you ever heard. It was almost like the sky was pissed off and roaring its head off at somebody. It sounded like it was right on top of us too, so I'm thinking we'd better move quickly before the lightning starts. Water does conduct electricity a little too well for my liking.

"Come on."

I start tugging her away as the sky opens - and boy does it open, the rain tips down with a ferocity that has us both soaked to the skin within sixty seconds - but she's resisting. Like a five year old she's giggling and has her mouth tipped open to the sky, catching raindrops on her tongue. Hell, the rate it's pouring down she's probably caught a whole bucketful in her mouth already. I hope she doesn't think this is cute, because with her mouth so far open and her tongue sticking out she looks ridiculously stupid.

"Come on, you're getting soaked!" I protest. I'm in a swim suit anyway but she was in this diaphanous little peach dress which has now gone almost see through. If I wasn't afraid of a lightning strike I'd probably have got horny and attacked her, but my preservation instinct is currently stronger than my sex drive. That's a rarity but it does happen.

"So? It's warm, live a little!"

Addy laughs and throws her arms out, twirling in the rain, her skirt trying to flare out around her but too heavy with water. It's like the corniest movie scene you can imagine, but I feel one corner of my mouth sliding up against my will. This woman is nuts, but she's free. I can't imagine being able to do this with anybody in LA. Pointlessly I push the water out of my hair, trying to stop it dripping into my eyes. It only gets immediately soaked again anyway, so quickly I give up that plan.

"Seriously woman we need to get inside, this isn't safe."

"What did I tell you? This is Adora, stop worrying."

She bounds over to me and pinches my cheeks before throwing her arms around my neck, grinning all the while. They may make this look glamorous in the movies but mascara is streaming down her face and her hair has clumped together in these tendrils that make it look like rat tails or something. I put my arms around her waist hoping to pick her up and start dragging her off, but her lips meet mine and sucker than I am I give in for a few moments. As stupid as I feel and she looks, there's something oddly sexy about kissing a girl in the rain - hey, I've never done this before so add it to the list of things experienced. I ought to do it at least once in my life.

As we break away, I grin at her. "Dying after being struck by lightning is one way to stop worrying but I prefer myself raw rather than fried. Come on."

"Fine, fine."

Addy lets me grab her hand and we start sprinting in the direction of the apartments, since they're closer. Guess that means we're staying at my place tonight.