Free Happy Endings by Jon Rance

more comfortable than I’d imagined and it went by fairly quickly with card games, sleep and talking about what we were going to do for the next ten days in paradise. I’d had fun in Bangkok and it was the perfect introduction to my trip, but I was ready for a change of scenery. Once we left behind the craziness of the city and headed into the country, it was a bit of a watershed for me and I almost cried. I had made it. I was doing it, not quite on my own, but as good as. I felt like a proper backpacker.
    The moment that really brought it all together and made me pinch myself came the next day. Jez and I were on the ferry heading out towards the island of Koh Phangan. It was a bright sunny day and mainland Thailand stretched out, disappearing ever further into the distance, its rainforests, beaches and cities left behind as we headed out to an island in the Gulf of Thailand. I was sitting on the back of the boat next to Jez, the wind in my hair and the smell of the ocean filtering through my nose. A ray of sunshine created a dappling effect on the ocean and then I smiled. I smiled because I knew that was it.
    On my old office computer back in London, I had an image of Thailand as my screensaver. I looked at it every day, and it was almost the same image as I saw in front of me. It wasn’t exactly the same place, but it looked so similar and suddenly it hit me. I’d done it. I’d made my dream come true and no matter what happened on the rest of the trip and for the rest of my life, I’d done that. It was truly an incredible feeling and one that was worth every penny, argument and mile travelled. I felt for the first time, perhaps in my whole life, like I was actually living instead of just existing. Jez had been telling me all the way down that Koh Phangan was absolute paradise and he wasn’t wrong. As soon as we stepped off the boat and onto the perfect sandy beach, I was awestruck. The turquoise water was so clear and the sand was a golden yellow and warm between my toes. Small Thai fishing boats sat in the water looking like props on a film set and palm trees hung over the beach, creating shadows that disappeared into the sea. We took a bumpy old minivan to the resort Jez had stayed at on his last visit. It was right on the beach and we had our own little bungalow, surrounded by lush rainforest and a thirty-second walk to an incredible secluded bay. There was, however, one slight problem.
    ‘Just one bed?’ I said to the lady at reception. She was a small Thai lady with a face of adamantine stillness. ‘And you have nothing else?’ She continued looking at me as if I’d asked her to unravel the mysteries of the universe in a language she barely seemed to grasp. She only spoke in short, sharp snaps, which sounded like she was trying to clear her throat, not communicate.
    ‘We’ll take it,’ said Jez, handing over the money before I had the chance to say anything else. ‘Trust me. It will be worth it.’
    This was how Jez and I ended up sharing a bungalow on the beach with only one bed, which would have been fine if the bed hadn’t been a small twin and we had to sleep with almost nothing on due to the heat. It was a situation designed to cause the greatest amount of sexual tension between two young people of the opposite sex in paradise for ten whole days. Throw in copious amounts of alcohol, applying sun screen, trips to and from the shower and the fact we definitely quite fancied each other and things didn’t look good. Maybe I should have got out while the going was good, but I couldn’t. I told myself again and again that we could do it. We could be platonic. Jez was just my friend. My travelling buddy. Mates.
    ‘So this was your evil plan,’ I said.
    ‘I should probably have booked ahead or something.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘You take the bed. I’ll be fine on the floor.’
    Jez looked at me with a solemn schoolboy face. I could tell he felt bad, but he also knew I wouldn’t make him sleep on