I fought with my eyes and the dark to stay awake. The nights of lost sleep were catching up with me. Still. I had to visit Ayamin. I pushed myself from under the covers and rolled until I was sitting on the floor of the container.

A glance at my nearly dead iPhone showed that it was midnight, time to take my chances. I threw the phone into my pocket, pulled on a woollen jersey, then stared at my boots.

Do I need them? I’m not going far. I shrugged and laced them up anyway, they’d be a little clunky, but keep my feet clean for Ayamin’s tent.

My boots seemed extra loud as I made my way into the kitchen.

The door was locked, probably thanks to me, so I jimmied up the window and slipped out into the night.

Running so our guard wouldn’t see me, I made my way down an avenue of tents to where I knew the Winnie the Pooh mansion was.

The only trouble is, the tent wasn’t there. I took a couple of steps backwards and looked toward the hospital, trying to reorient myself. I stared at the outlines of the two tents nearby – one looked like a yurt, the other was a dome nylon tent. They were the same.

It was only when I crouched that I saw the flat rectangle from where the tent used to be. That was it. She’d gone.

I stood up like I had arthritis. Slowly and in pain. I couldn’t breathe properly.

‘AYAMIN.’ I yelled, forgetting I was surrounded by sleeping people. Someone in a tent to my right yelled ‘shut up,’ in Arabic.

I realised no one else gave a damn about the poor Syrian girl who’d left here on her own.

My fists hit the ground over and over again, I needed some physical escape to get me away from my thoughts. Why did I sleep so long?

I stood up, fists burning, and started to run. The entrance to the camp stood in front of me, but as I ran towards it, I saw the silhouette of two guards talking to each other.

I turned left and found the spot where the fence didn’t quite reach the ground. I slipped through the hole and was up and running again, my stiff legs relaxed with each step.

Initially, I simply wanted to outrun my thoughts and with a constant slap, slap, on the tarmac I did. But as my legs began to tire, I realised I’d met a road that was headed north – the same way Ayamin would have travelled.

I kept running. My body got hot under the woollen sweater I’d thrown on. Without stopping I slipped it over my head and tied it around my neck where it bounced with each step.

Occasionally a vehicle would flash by, ruining my night vision.

My thighs began to feel like mud, my calf muscles tightened up, and eventually I was forced to slow a jog. The slower pace gave me time to think which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I realised there were dozens of roads heading north, and that even if she had taken this one Ayamin would’ve hidden to one of the sides if she heard a heffalump like me pounding along the road behind her.

I slowed to a walk. All the energy and shock had gone from me. Ayamin was gone.

There was a smooth boulder on the side of the road. I stared at its silhouette for a moment before I sat on it and pulled my legs up to my chest. I thought back on my time with Ayamin and tried to convince myself that just the memories of her would be enough.

By the time I had to pull my woollen jersey back on, I knew the memories would never be enough. I wanted to make more memories with Ayamin. I wanted her.

I lept from the rock. The ground was softer here, but the skin of my fist still tore as it thumped against the earth. I only stopped hitting the ground when blood ran down my hand.

As I sat there panting, I noticed a satellite bobbing up and down just above the road from where I’d come from.

It moved closer and gained in size and became brighter than a satellite. The sound of footsteps reached me and I watched, mouth gaping, as Ayamin walked past me.

I jumped up from my rock and ran towards her, ‘Ayamin!’ I yelled, ‘Ayamin!’

‘What??’ Ayamin shouted back, a scowl on her face.

‘I wanted to see you.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘Here I am.’ she turned away, ‘And I have a long walk ahead of me.’

I walked beside her as she set off down the road again. The crunch of her footsteps seemed loud in the night.

‘Where are you going?’

‘England.’

‘And you’re walking there on your own? With only Winnie the Pooh for shelter?’

Her eyes narrowed at me, ‘It’s enough. It’s what I’ve got.’

Ayamin stopped walking. I stopped walking. She wobbled and leaned into me. In the starlight, I could see tears forming in her lashes.

‘Look at me,’ she wiped at her eyes, ‘Only a couple of kilometres down the road and I’m already starting to cry.’

She shook her head, ‘Do you think I’ll make it Danny?’

I wrapped my arms around her, helping to support the large backpack that hung behind her, ‘With your spirit, I think you will… in fact I know you will.’

She looked up and tested a smile. In the starry night she looked beautiful, ‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’m coming with you.’

The words tumbled from my mouth before my brain had a chance to consider them, but I knew they were as true as the earth. I couldn’t abandon Ayamin, something about her just wouldn’t let me.

Although clearly, she didn’t feel the same way.

Ayamin pushed my chest, throwing herself out of our hug and pointed her finger at me, ‘Don’t talk stupid Danny.’

I held my hands up, ‘What? You expect me to stay?’

‘Of course I do, you have a ride home to Britain and a place to stay when you get there and all those people back at the camp, they’ll miss you if you just disappear.’

‘I don’t care. It wouldn’t be right to let you go alone.’

Ayamin sighed and put her face in her hands. Then she turned and started walking north. ‘Go home Danny.’

I followed along about ten meters behind, my hands in my pockets.

Ayamin tried to speed up her pace, but with the big backpack on her shoulders I kept up easily. She tried to go down false roads and double back but I just waited for her. She even tried throwing rocks at me, but she wasn’t exactly a born cricketer and they bounced near my feet.

‘Go away!’

‘No.’

She spun, fists clenched, ‘You want me to throw more rocks?’

I held a hand to my chin, and thought about it a moment, ‘Actually, yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s funny.’

Her hand shot to the ground, picked up a rock, and swung it in my direction. With a soft thwack, the stone landed two metres to my right.

I laughed.

‘You moved,’ Ayamin yelled.

‘I did not.’

‘Well… you look like a fish.’

‘What sort of fish?’

‘An ugly fish.’

That made me laugh. She spun around again and I hid my grin, ‘Ayamin, you look like a princess.’

She snorted and tried to speed up her footsteps, ‘What sort of princess?’

‘An ugly princess.’

For a moment she laughed, then she tried to hide it with a cough.

‘I’d rather be an ugly princess than an ugly fish.’

The two of us walked and yelled insults and told bad jokes about each other until the sun came up. It was bright red, and although I hadn’t slept, the cool air and the sun’s magic revived me.

We hit the city of Izmir just as the morning traffic started to get bad. The honks and angry Turkish shouts were a far cry from the stillness of the country roads we’d walked on. Back then the only shouting came from us.

As we got into the city proper and the smell of cars became our every breath Ayamin stopped running forwards when I walked next to her. She appeared to accept that I was coming along but still wouldn’t give me anything more than one-word answers.

‘Which smugglers are we going to?’ I asked.

‘Any.’

‘How do we know they’re trustworthy.’

‘We don’t.’

‘What will we do if they rip us off?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Are you still angry?’

‘Yes.’

We made our way through the city. It was only as Ayamin stopped for lunch that my rumbling stomach reminded me of how ill-prepared I was.

Aside from my woollen sweater and walking boots I had a pair of shorts, my t-shirt, and a nearly-dead iPhone. I didn’t have any way of withdrawing the money I’d had in England.

I watched as Ayamin counted and recounted her coins, she was staring at a small loaf of Turkish bread in a baker’s stall. She glanced at me and sighed, adding a few more coins to the pile in her left hand.

She walked up to the stall and pointed to the Turkish loaf, handing over the coins. The baker pulled the loaf from the shelf, put it in a brown paper bag, and with a nod, handed it to her.

Ayamin turned, snapped her bread in half and gave the larger part to me.

‘Thanks.’ I mumbled feeling like a complete burden.

But the bread was soft, with spices that made my mouth water when I bit into it. I wolfed down most of the loaf before we’d left the shop.

We passed through a market on our way to the sea. Yellow, red, and deep ochre spices lured my nose and eyes through it. There was this constant noise of people bartering and comparing and begging in different languages and it all felt so much more alive than the camp had.

We reached the edge of the market and the beginning of the Aegean Sea. Small waves lapped up against the harbour. We watched as a cruise ship filled with British and Americans set sail. Some of the people on board looked almost… bored.

Ayamin touched my arm, then pointed to a couple standing on the harbour. They wore tattered clothes, and at their feet sat two large backpacks. Like us, they’d been watching the ship.

‘They’re Syrian too,’ she said and walked towards them with her arms outstretched. Ayamin began speaking to them, the two looked from her to me and back again. The guy in particular looked wary when he saw me.

Ayamin asked something and the man pointed out a route through the streets with his finger. Ayamin nodded and gave a mini bow. Then the four of us parted ways.

‘They told me where I can find a smuggler,’ she said, ‘He’ll take me to Greece, I can make my way from there.’

‘Don’t you mean we?’

‘If you cross this sea Danny that’s it, there’s no going back.’ Her warm hand touched my chest, ‘You’re a brave and stupid and amazing boy. But this isn’t your world.’

I looked back, the two Syrians were still watching me. I thought about not being able to speak Arabic, Maybe she’s right? I don’t know this place.

I was about to turn around. To admit that I was way out of my depth.

But then I watched her struggle to lift the pack onto her shoulders. I could see rainclouds out at sea. I thought about what I was going back to. A camp without Ayamin. No home back in England. Three convictions to my name.

‘My life is shit,’ I pulled the iPhone from my pocket, ‘I’ve got the money for my ticket right here.’

She shook her head and stormed off towards the sea.

I got a stack of money for my iPhone from some guy who didn’t speak English, but gave me the biggest handshake in the world when I traded with him.

I was feeling pretty good about the deal until Ayamin saw the stack of notes in my hand.

‘You idiot!’ she said. ‘That’ll barely be enough for a ticket. You could’ve got twice that.’ She threw her hands up, ‘But I’m not talking to you so it’s not my problem.’

Within minutes nearly all my money was in the hands of one of the smugglers. The guy had greasy hair and a shark’s grin. He passed us a lifejacket each and led us into a concrete shed to wait.

Inside there were people hunched up on sagging white benches. A strong scent of vomit mixed with bleach and seawater filled the air. We found ourselves a section of bench and sat.

Next to me, Ayamin shivered slightly. She leaned her head back against the damp wall.