I met him inin Heathrow Airport

I stuff belongings back in my bag after having airport security rifle through everything, and sling it over my shoulder to head for duty free. Face red and puffy from all the crying, the last thing you need is the sensors detecting something wrong with your bag and sending it down a separate conveyor belt to be examined.

“What’s this?” goes the guy, opening up my liquids bag. Staring into my eyes like he doesn’t notice the tears still welling from them.

It’s more awkward that he pretends not to see them.

They see it all the time though, probably. Start of September, everyone aged 18 – 30 in the UK is packing up their life and moving it to the other side of the world to begin their Australian working holiday dream.

Myself included.

I put no proper thought into it. Motivation to go struck me one summer morning during a commute down the M1 to work. In the middle of July, it was chucking it down. That’s when I came to the decision. People do it all the time, move to Australia for the year. I remember thinking, dropping a gear on approach to traffic, that I wanted to be one of those people. Young. Free. Living at the beach. Working a coffee shop job a couple hours a day to pay rent.

Saying goodbye to my parents was rough. Ambling through duty-free, I still dwell on saying goodbye to them. It felt wrong, and I felt selfish walking away from them like that when they’d brought me up so well.

I find mum’s perfume in the shop and spray it onto my skin, hoping it’ll infuse into the cells and stay there forever.

After that, I collapse into a chair in the middle of London Heathrow, terminal three, and adapt the mysterious-celebrity demeanour by slipping on the sunglasses to cover my very tearful eyes. It doesn’t hit me until now. What the fuck am I doing? What if I get in a car accident and never see my family again? What if there’s an emergency and I don’t have funds to fly back? I could be homeless. Develop severe skin cancer. Decide I hate Australians.

In a moment of distress, I throw my head back and hope for it to smack against the back of the chair – I need to snap out of it right now – but instead it boinks against something else. Not cushioned in the slightest. Ouch.

I turn around and see a man massaging the back of his head. He turns around, grits his teeth, and frowns when he notices the sunglasses.

I stick up my hand. “Sorry.”

The frown continues. So does the grit. Pearly white teeth with pointed canines. He looks like he wants to bite me. He close-sets his eyes, Gucci green, and says, “watch what you’re doing.”

“It was an accident.” I lift the sunglasses onto my head and wear them like a headband, vision obscured both from the tears and the dark lenses.

That’s when his frown disappears. When he closes his mouth and softens his eyes. “Sorry.” A hand comes up and he shows me his palm like he’s driving down a narrow road and thanking me for granting him right of way. He creases his eyes. Without wearing the shades, they’re a brighter colour. Less of a Gucci green, and now more of a forest. “Are you OK?”