Page 48 of The Next Chapter

I reluctantly release my grip.

‘And call me every day.’ I might be mistaken, but there’s a slight hitch to his voice.

‘Of course I will.’

‘Love you, Lily Brown. Good luck.’

There’s a lump in my throat making it impossible to speak.

Instead, I watch Seb do a three-point turn out of the car park ready to make the trek back. I try not to concentrate too hard on the fact that without his car, I’m basically stranded here, eight long hours away from home.

I take a deep breath in and out. Count to five and swallow around the lump as his car disappears through the hotel gates. I offer up a final wave.

Another breath.

My first session with Lola is in ten minutes.

It had all happened so quickly last night.

After I’d decided to stay, Seb had all but shoved me out of the cottage to let Noah and Lola know. I think he was worried that I would back out. It was a good call, I still feel like backing out.

Noah had promised to keep me company and even though he was just being nice and friendly, I still felt hot all over. A state of being that had quickly dissipated once I’d told Lola that Your Life would take her on as a client and that I’d stay for the summer. She’d suggested that we get started right away. As in the next day. As in ten… no, wait, five minutes from now.

I’m still breathing deeply and staring at the empty car park where Seb’s car has disappeared from.

I need to move. I hate being late and I’m at a real risk of it if I don’t move right now. Here I go. Moving right this second.

I take a final, calming deep breath and walk back towards the cottage for my phone. If we’re doing the interviews online, I normally just get a transcript of the session, but whenever we get a local client, I use software on my phone to make sure I don’t forget anything important.

Harper is in the gardens, by one of the picnic tables. She’s holding her phone up to the sky.

‘Hi, Harper,’ I call to her.

She looks up, squinting her eyes against the sun as she sees me and ignores me.

Well, that’s that, then.

Phone in hand, I’m walking through the gardens towards the back of the hotel, breathing in warm summer air. The grass under my feet is patchy, filled with weeds. It looks frazzled. I know how it feels.

Lola and I have agreed to meet in her office, once the breakfast rush is over, though personally, I feel that rush is a stretch. There are, like, eight people staying here.

The hotel isn’t big. I find Lola in the dining room, piling empty bowls of porridge on a table. Like all of the rooms, in here, it’s mostly wood. The walls are pine, and the floor is stone. There are worn wooden tables in various sizes and Lola has pinned the Scottish flag along one wall, along with a blue flag with a white cross on it that must be that of the Isle of Skye.

Seb and I haven’t mixed much with the other guests this weekend, but now that I’m on my own, I’d better make more of an effort to be friendly. I wave hello at a young couple sat nursing cups of tea.

‘Hi, Lola,’ I say to her back. She stops wiping and turns to face me. ‘I’m ready whenever you are.’ I smile. See. I am calm, collected. I don’t know who I’m trying to convince, but I’m going with it.

‘Right-o,’ she says, and I get it, she’s nervous too. It’s normal. Sharing your life story with someone is daunting. This isn’t fiction, it’s someone’s actual life, the only one they get. That’s one of the reasons I love this job, it’s such a privilege to hear a person’s history. She turns to the couple still eating. ‘Y’all can just leave those on the side here, I’ll get them later.’

‘No problem, Lola,’ the man says with a Scottish accent.

‘Follow me, then,’ she says to me. So I do, my own nerves ramping up as I follow her through to the entrance where we arrived on that first night. This time we pass the leaflets and wait outside a door by the entrance while Lola pulls a ring of keys out of her dungarees pocket. Today, she’s wearing a tie-dye green and white T-shirt underneath and she has Crocs on her feet.

Lola wiggles a key into the lock and pushes the door with her shoulder.

‘After you.’ She waves me through.

Lola’s office is the tiny office of a woman who is running a ten-bedroom hotel on her own. I think there’s a desk under the pile of papers by the small window, but I can’t make out any of the actual desk. The ends of my fingers twitch with the urge to sort.