Page 28 of The Next Chapter

I nod, dreamlike still. This is what I need. Someone to manage my every move. Imagine how easy life would be, without the avalanche of micro stresses that comes with decision making.

In the bathroom, I have the speediest shower known to man. The shower is really small, and the water splutters out in fits and starts. It’s also a bit cloudy, which I ignore. Panicking about Legionnaires’ disease isn’t exactly going to restore my equilibrium.

I get soap in my eye and bash my knee and then I have to try to pull my clothes on in the confined space, still mildly damp.

I pin my fringe back, having lost this battle, but vowing to win the war later with some heavy-duty hairspray.

Looking at myself in the mirror as I brush my teeth, I’m thinking that it’s really going to be a toss-up which part of my cover story is the least believable today. The fact that I’m pretending not to know who Lola is or that I’m meant to be enthusiastic about kayaking. I feel green at the thought of the loch. Greenish hue or not, I am not a woman who looks like they might thrive in the wild.

I step out of the bathroom, followed by a plume of steam.

‘What are they?’ Seb asks, waving a hand at me.

‘What’s what?’ I ask.

‘On your legs. Why are they so big?’

‘They’re my new trousers. I don’t know, they fit on the waist but they’re massive everywhere else. But they do detach at the knee and turn into shorts.’ I attempt a demonstration. The zip gets stuck at the exact moment Seb starts to laugh.

I hop about trying to force the snagged zip shut. Seb is now howling. ‘Neither of us is exactly Bear Grylls,’ I finish, finally reclosing the zip.

‘True. Ah well, that’s cheered me up no end. Thanks, Lily. Come on, we’d better get going.’

I inhale an all-bran breakfast bar and then stuff the (many) pockets of my half-short-half-trouser get-up with back-up snacks.

We step outside.

‘God, my arse looks amazing in these trousers. Don’t you think?’ Seb admires himself in the reflection of the double doors, twisting round to get a good look.

‘It does look pretty good, yeah,’ I agree. ‘Sort of more round than normal.’

‘Morning,’ Noah calls over, waving while me and Seb both act like we weren’t just checking out his bum.

‘Morning,’ we call back, and Noah smiles. I think we got away with it.

Walking down to the loch together, I think that Noah doesn’t seem to be quite as at war with the heat or the environment as me. He’s wearing navy swimming shorts, a white T-shirt and flip-flops. His sunglasses are pushed to the top of his head. He looks like he should have a film crew following him around.

‘A braw day to be out on the loch,’ he says, glancing up at the already blue sky.

Braw means nice. I read about that already.

I couldn’t disagree more, but I nod. ‘Let’s do this thing,’ I reply. And there’s a moment that’ll be living in my brain for the rest of time. Popping up at unhelpful intervals to remind me how cringe I’ve been.

It’s already warm as Seb and I trail behind him, making our way around to the front of the hotel. He leads us down to the wooden pier where there’s already a small number of people waiting alongside some kayaks which, in my opinion, bob ominously.

Lola is there, too, her blonde hair in a plait again. She’s chatting to a middle-aged couple, while the mostly bald chicken pecks around her bare feet.

I look down at my own Gore-tex shoes, the laces pulled tight, and wonder if that’s one of the reasons she left. Maybe even as a baby there were signs that I’d end up awfully high maintenance and she didn’t fancy dealing with it.

The closer I get, the more I’m realizing that the loch water is so dark it’s almost black. If I fell in and drowned, no one would ever find my body.

We join the edge of the group as Noah goes to talk to Lola. The teenager from the woods last night is here, looking absolutely furious about the fact. She’s stood with, but a little apart from, a regular looking couple. The teenager is dressed like she’s about to go clubbing rather than out for a nice little kayak on the loch of doom. Her skirt is held together with actual safety pins.

A boy who must be about nine gestures to her to come over to where he’s half dangling from the edge of the pier and I absolutely don’t want to know what he’s seen in there. I bet it’s a massive fish. And there you go, giant loch fish, a new fear unlocked.

I expect the teenager to tell him to fuck off, that seems to be her go-to. But instead, she lets out a huff and says, ‘What is it, Blake?’, moving over to him.

‘Careful Harper, careful Blake!’ the man from the normal couple calls. The look Harper gives him is pure venom. Teenagers are literally terrifying.