Page 51 of The Next Chapter

I slam the door shut and slump on the floor in the hallway, overcome with no small amount of upset on Lola’s behalf.

How awful she must have felt when her dad left and then her mum wasn’t bothered about her.

How rejected she must have felt when Jimmy ignored her after they slept together.

How bad she must feel now that her own daughter has left her.

No wonder she won’t go out with James the silver fox vet.

She probably hates feeling like she’s relying on anyone.

And here’s the thing, I care about Lola and how she might be feeling.

I just… can’t think straight.

Saturday night, it felt like the absolute right decision to flee. To get away from her and Noah.

This morning I’m not so sure.

I need to get everything sorted, everything straight in my head. Once everything is ordered and I can think clearly again, I’ll come up with a plan. Not three but five steps back to normality. Or something like that.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror.

Better make it ten.

I head upstairs to my wardrobe, not thinking too deeply about what I’m doing. I read Dad’s letter again, the one he left me that told me to go after Lola. And what he said at the end.

If you do go to her, you’re going to find out some other truths I’m not proud of, Lily. I’m sorry about that too. I hope you know that everything we did, it was because me and your mum loved you so much. You and your mum are the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m so proud of you.

Is that what he meant? Did he realize that I’d find out that Mum and Dad didn’t send my letters to Lola?

If someone had suggested, before I met her, that my birth mum had been complicit in a deceit against her daughter, I’d have believed them in a heartbeat.

But I have met Lola. I know her now. I’ve heard as she’s told me about the worst parts of herself. And so, in the cold light of day, it’s hard to imagine that the Lola I know would lie about not getting them. Sure, it might make her look better, but I don’t know… she really did seem surprised.

But then I’m here, aren’t I? Living in the house that Mum and Dad created for us to be a family. It feels dishonest and ungrateful to doubt them.

It’s all so messed up in my head.

I put the letter back.

Later. I’ll think about it later.

Replying to 213 WhatsApp messages is guaranteed to drive even a well-balanced person to an existential crisis.

After a very frenzied cleaning session, followed by an equally frenzied personal grooming session, I sit down to sort out my phone messages.

In six short weeks I missed two pregnancy announcements, three engagements, one divorce and one dead grandparent. People needed me and I wasn’t there.

I go through and add my reactions, crying sad emoji, heart emoji, confetti emoji, careful not to mix them up.

It should make me feel better.

I should be relishing the organization. The ticking of things off a to-do list has always made me happier than is probably normal. But even as I glance at my new ‘to-do list’, putting a neat tick next to ‘WhatsApp’, I don’t feel good.

I wonder what Lola’s doing now?

I wonder if Noah misses me?

I knew it. I knew I wasn’t cut out for a summer fling.

I make it into the office first thing the next morning, ready to take on the world of personal memoirs. Seb, however, takes one look at me and sends me home, claiming that I need some time and space to process (and also claiming that I look like someone dying of TB, which is, you know, rude).

I send an email to Mr Vandergilden rearranging our next session.

It’s stressful, the thought of time off with nothing to do. But then, I remind myself of how productive I can be, with all my time. I clean the oven with the new top spec oven cleaner some influencer raved about online.

Who needs family when you have before and after pictures of your oven?

I get the ladder out and clean the outside windowsills. I’ve had this on my house jobs sub-list for quite some time and the thrill I get ticking that one off. Wild.

It’s a shame that I obviously slept way too much on Skye because now I can’t sleep, even though I’m scaling ladders during the day to tire myself out and I have all of my sleep aids to hand.

I’m taking herbal Nytols like they’re going out of fashion and wondering if the mountain air was the only reason I slept so well on Skye.

Possibly it had something to do with the calm I felt up there.

Of knowing I was close to Lola. Not wondering the whole time.

Possibly that had something to do with it.

Now I’m back to wondering. About her. About Noah. So much wondering.

Instead of sleeping, I lie awake, running through everything I said to Lola. My brain is tired but it’s showing no signs of letting up. I think of Jimmy Nickle, the man I know for sure is my biological dad and who sounds like a complete arse.

I start to feel mad then, on Lola’s behalf. Who even does that? Abandons someone when they need them?

I mean, I did that. But it’s completely different. Not the same at all.

These happy thoughts whirl around my brain every night until around 4am, when I finally give in and get up.

The next morning, I beg Seb to let me come back to work after a week.

Me: Please. I’m ready and I’m totally fine now. Spick and span.

Seb: God help me.

Seb: Fine, come back. But at least let me forward you my therapist’s number. I’ll get a refer a friend discount.

Come Monday, I’m the first person in the office.

I’m not even going to think about Lola’s memoirs. I’m just going to clear my emails. Nice and easy to get me back into the swing of things. Plus, imagine the joy I’ll feel, finally being on top of them. I’ll have achieved the impossible.

‘It’s like watching a slow-motion car crash.’ I hear Seb behind me. I don’t look round though because I am flying through these emails, and I don’t want to break my pace. ‘Oh my god, are you eating a Mars bar? I’m staging an intervention.’

I take another aggressive bite of the half-eaten chocolate bar I’d picked up this morning.

‘Good morning to you too.’ My voice is strained. That’s what insomnia and three cups of filter coffee on an empty stomach will do to a person. My fingers are flying over these keys.

‘You need to take a break, Lily.’ He comes to lean against the desk next to mine, looking down at me.

‘What? No! I don’t need a break. I only have seven emails left.’

‘You just replied to Clementine with “Love you, Lola”. One, pretty sure that’s not your name, and two, let’s stick with best wishes, shall we, for the sign off?’

I start frantically scrolling through my sent items.

‘Are you checking my emails now?’

‘You cc’d me into it. Same as you have every other email. I can’t believe you pulled out an as per my last email to Mr Vandergilden.’

‘He wanted to confirm when our next meeting was. Apparently, he has edits.’

I try to roll my eyes but clearly my eyeballs aren’t working anymore. They feel like sandpaper. Probably all the caffeine. Wow, what a mess.

My phone buzzes on the desk.

Noah: I miss you. I want to talk. Call me?

I look away from my phone and then check again because I don’t trust that I haven’t hallucinated it.

Well, that’s… that. Definitely not hallucinating. Imagining him thinking of me makes me warm in a way that’s all nice and cosy and lovely. I miss him too. Like an ache that just won’t let up.

I look at Seb, my eyes wide. ‘Oh my god,’ he says, ‘you’re going to ask me to drive you to Skye again, aren’t you?’

I shake my head. ‘No. Dramatic as that would be, there’s no way we could execute a plan like that in the morning traffic. But I do think that maybe I need to resolve things a little better than I did.’

‘What, not fleeing in the dead of night, you mean?’

‘Yeah…’ I push my thumbs into the side of my eyes. ‘God, it’s all so messed up.’

The door to the office opens behind us and Clementine says, ‘Hi Lily, we thought you weren’t back yet.’

‘I decided to come back early,’ I tell her, turning round to smile.

She’s wearing pink hot pants, even though the weather has (finally) cooled down.

Never has a person been happier to see a black cloud as I was this morning.

Let’s be honest here, summer just isn’t my season.

Give me a pumpkin spiced latte over a mojito with a little umbrella in it any day of the week.

‘Summer’s over, I think,’ Phil says.

Everyone hums their agreement.

‘Did you bring us a present back?’ Clementine asks.

Is that the done thing these days? Bringing your colleagues gifts from a working holiday? Five weeks on the edge of civilization and I’m all out of the etiquette loop.

‘Er…’

‘Don’t worry, she won’t have forgotten to bake something for the staff meeting. She’s never missed one yet.’ Phil goes to sit by his desk, opening a new bottle of Gaviscon. He once admitted that he gets a real thrill out of the crack that comes with opening a new bottle.

That’s not what’s distracting me, though.

No, it’s the fact that I have forgotten to bake something for the staff meeting.

And it doesn’t matter that I’ve had an awful lot on my plate lately, so much that my plate is now invisible under the mound of stuff on there.

I’d never have let what was going on in my own life distract me from baking for the staff meeting before.

Even the first meeting after Dad died, there I was with a chocolate tray bake.

‘Well, the thing is, see…’ I start, the urge to say sorry so patently strong that I have to wrestle it down.

Because I shouldn’t be sorry for this, I don’t think.

Isn’t that one of the things I learned on Skye?

That I can do hard things. And anyway, me making baked goods each week is not what is keeping the world turning.

‘I actually haven’t had time to bake this weekend. Maybe we could start a rota where we each bring something in when we have a staff meeting?’