Page 115 of The Next Chapter

I roll away after another flop smacks me across my forehead.

Pleased to have more space, Elton spreads out. I check my phone. 6am. I’ve been asleep (if you can call it that) for four hours.

But you know what, if I’m going to start getting things back on track, there is no time like the present.

I need a plan.

Maybe a three-point plan.

Though that sounds way too much like the three-pronged plan I’d had with Noah. My time on Skye can’t have taken planning from me, anything but planning!

I force myself out of bed. In the morning light I’m unfortunately unable to miss my reflection in the mirror above my dressing table.

I look like a victim of Dracula. How can someone spend so long in the sun and come back paler than ever? There are deep dark circles under my eyes. I think I might have actual foliage in my hair.

On Skye, I blended right in, but here, I’m all out of place in my white bedroom.

No, I’m not going to dwell on where I fit. Chances are, I don’t fit anywhere. Instead, wrapping myself in my dressing gown, I head downstairs, deciding that it’s now or never when it comes to tackling the mountain of washing that I’ve brought back with me.

Washing, it turns out, is an excellent distraction from fleeing your birth mum and the man you’re pretty sure you were falling for in the dead of night and instead sleeping with your dead dad’s cat who hates you.

I’m a woman possessed. There are piles of colour co-ordinated washing raring to go.

Of course today would be the day when the weather finally breaks and I can’t hang anything out on the line.

Not to be deterred, I drag out my drying rack.

I add fabric softener and get a little thrill of pleasure at the fact.

I read an article once that millennials were abandoning fabric softener, fools.

The first load on, I think that I might as well clean the house and check on all the plants.

And that’s how Mr Cains finds me at 8am. Scrubbing the wonky skirting boards in the hallway. Rubber gloves and dressing gown on and it’s quite possible there’s still tree in my hair.

‘Oh hello, Lily, I didn’t realize you were home.’

I smile at him from where I’m kneeling on the floor. ‘Yes, yes, I’m back. Thank you for feeding Elton. I should have messaged, and now you’ve come all the way over here, I’m so sorry. But me and Elton, we have it all under control.’

Elton, the absolute traitor, comes thumping down the stairs to miaow at Mr Cains. So far, Elton has not deigned to recognize my presence. So much for us bonding.

‘There’s a good boy, Elton. Isn’t it nice that your mum’s home?’ He strokes him behind his ear. I’d lose a finger.

‘Elton’s taking some time to readjust,’ I declare grandly. ‘But we’ll be getting on like a house on fire in no time at all, won’t we, Elton?’

Elton hisses at me as the end of his tail makes the slightest contact with my leg when he tries to get around me to move towards the kitchen, presumably in search of food.

‘Is, er, everything okay, Lily?’ Mr Cains asks. ‘Only you don’t seem quite yourself.’

It’s because I haven’t stopped scrubbing. Most people stop scrubbing when they have guests. I sit back on my ankles.

It’s quite possible that I’m high on the fumes of all the cleaning products. The house is cleaner than it’s ever been. It’s almost enough to make me forget about everything. Almost.

The only thing I haven’t cleaned is Mum’s piano under the giant throw. I know my limits. Seeing Mum’s piano is a hard limit.

I wave the bottle of bleach I have in one rubber-gloved hand at him. ‘Course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? It’s not like anything happened that could make me not fine.’

Mr Cains looks at me for a moment longer.