Love Me: The Manoir

A Whistle-Stop Tour Round Europe While Crying

The end of school marked a point of my life that meant one thing: I was one the cusp of adulthood. And the best way to display this newfound independence is give my mum a heart attack by going around Europe for 2 weeks in a classic interrailing holiday. This was something I had wanted to do for years, and as we boarded the plane to Budapest where we would start I felt the excitement tingle down my spine (these tingles may have also been my back spasming from my backpack).

It was the best two weeks of my life. It felt like I was living through a film as I watched the Hungarian countryside rush past us as we sat on train carriage floors, or when we walked around Prague in the night after drinking pints that cost less than £1.

A list of all the people we met while travelling:

•    An old Italian man who tried to get us to pole dance in a Budapest club

•    Three (less creepy) and rather attractive Italian baseball players

•    A group of Italian men – one fateful member being called Miguel who I drunkenly kissed and regretted almost immediately when he tried to pull me into a sweaty hug. When I told Andrew the next day I felt guilt surge through me, but told myself that it wasn't a big deal because we weren't technically dating.

•    A few boys from Copenhagen that I never spoke to.

•    The love of my life who I never spoke to named Julien but his name in my head with always be Fake Daniel. We hit the woah all evening and he proceeded to sing all the words to J-Lo songs. I think about him a lot.

•    A scary man who lifted me into the air against my will twice and almost dropped me on his head. He then fed Fake Daniel's friend ice and pulled my hair. He also tried to attack Caitlin. We think he must have been on drugs.

•    A man named Johnny who held hands with Caitlin on the train as a dare.

•    A group of Chilean/Peruvian men who were staying in our hostel in Berlin. We would later see them in Paris which would lead to an awkward dinner and two of our friends getting with them.

•    Three Americans in the hostel bar in Berlin – two of which were US military men.

•    The kindest train conductor who helped us manage to not miss our train to Paris.

These four girls I travelled with were the central part of this trip for me. We went crazy on the train rides, we powered through sleep deprivation, and we did everything we possibly could squeeze into the time we had. We did interrailing right.

And so where did the tears come from?

We were in Berlin one night when Caitlin gestured that I should come to her bunk bed while the others were still getting ready to try and get into one of the more exclusive clubs in Berlin.

"I have something to tell you," she said quietly, and I listened expecting it to be something about her break up a couple of weeks before, or maybe about something about the second leg of our trip in her house in Switzerland.

"I like you," she said softly. Maybe she didn't say those words exactly, in fact I think she just made a vague gesture.

I couldn't control the laugh that came out of my mouth. I wanted to pinch myself because I must have been delirious. Caitlin, someone who had once said that she had never and would never like me, had just announced the fact that she had feelings for me. What kind of alternative universe or cliché teen movie was I living in?

This one declaration would cause me to spiral out of control for the next month. Every single emotion I had felt before – the pain and the happiness – seemed to come back and completely cloud my vision. It made me rethink every single event that we had shared over the past two months.

The fact that she had come in to school during study leave just to see me, how close and touchy-feely she had been on our holiday to the Isle of Wight the month before, and so many more things that just made sense all of a sudden.

The thing was: I didn't believe. I didn't believe her for a minute. I couldn't believe or imagine that she was going through the same anguish and pain that I had when I was in love with her. I told myself that she was just sad and getting over her relationship. I was nothing more than the rebound.

The problem with being told that someone likes you on holiday is that you can't escape them. And it makes every single one of your feelings all the more intense. One day we would be close to kissing outside a Dutch park, the next day I couldn't even speak to her because I was so angry that she would do this to me.

It didn't help that Andrew wasn't really speaking to me at this point, wanting to give me space to enjoy my holiday no matter how many times I called him. I wanted to hear his voice to remind me of normality and what I had at home.

When we got to Switzerland we were joined by two more friends who had to be filled in on all the drama. It was a shock to everyone – something that no one could have guessed or expected.

I sat her down one evening after not speaking for a couple of days, and we discussed the entire thing. I was egotistical as hell when I look back. I quizzed her about why she liked me, largely because the idea of anyone finding something about me to like was still a novel idea. There was something about the notion that people could like the small things I did, the way I looked, or my personality was something that I couldn't understand.

I had assumed Andrew was a unique case of me being able to worm myself into someone's life, but the idea that someone could have a crush – an unrequited crush – on me just didn't seem plausible.

I lived in a constant state of confusion for the rest of the trip. This was something I had dreamed of for months before, the very thing that I had spent six months of my life pining after. And here it was.

Except it couldn't happen. Her ex was one of my best friends. I had to think about Andrew. We were going to university in a month. It would have dragged me back into a mind set that had damaged me so much already. However, I allowed myself to indulge in points at the fantasy relationship that could have happened.

When we got home, things seemed to get worse. We couldn't be left alone without me wondering if something would happen. I felt so out of control of my own actions.

I kissed her, twice. I cried after the second time, feeling so disgusting and horrible about myself. I didn't like being the bad guy. I didn't like thinking of Andrew waiting for me, him falling slowly in love while I could barely understand my emotions day to day.

The one thing I knew was this: I didn't love Caitlin anymore. When our lips collided in a messy and secretive way, I felt nothing. I didn't feel the butterflies rise like I did when Andrew kissed me and stroked my back. After a month of agonisingly trying to work out my head, I came to a realisation. I liked Andrew a lot more than I thought I did.

And that was just as scary.