Page 88 of The Next Chapter

It’s all very domestic. Too domestic, surely, for a fling? When I asked ChatGPT about it, there definitely wasn’t much about dinner rotas or sharing pens. Noah said he had the perfect pen, a Dialogue 3 fountain pen that cost over a hundred pounds, and I have to say there’s no accounting for the thrill of a high-quality pen. So no, none of those things are in the casual sex handbook.

I’m lost in my thoughts. Serving pizza on autopilot. I carry it outside on the little wooden chopping board I’ve found.

I catch sight of myself in the reflection of the doors.

I looked wrecked. I’ve taken to pinning my fringe back as par for the course every morning now, but parts of it have escaped and are stood on end.

But it’s not just that. I don’t look like me. I look like a version of me who’s been forced to live in the wilderness for weeks or survive the zombie apocalypse. I’m on my way to being Tom Hanks at the end of Castaway. My cheeks are flushed, and I’m covered in a thin layer of sweat.

How can this have happened? I’ve been here three weeks. Three. And I have a shower (when it works) and a flushing toilet and everything.

Maybe all the lies are aging me.

I force myself outside, because standing there dwelling on the fact that I look like a woman whose life is falling apart is not a precursor to a productive evening.

‘Pizza’s ready!’ I say with false cheer.

I plonk it down on the little white table, my arm shaking from carrying everything while I stared at myself in the window.

‘Looks great, thanks for cooking.’

Noah always says thank you, even though we take turns. It’s a travesty to womankind that he comes with manners and tattoos but an aversion to staying in one place.

‘Oh, it’s nothing, my pleasure. I’ll go get the salad.’

‘There’s pizza?’ Harper appears from behind us. I wonder if I should be worried about how much time she spends alone in the forest. At least we know how to lure her out. I guess we can add pizza to her calling card. Alongside Pringles and Spotify.

‘I made plenty, help yourself.’

I go to get the salad, remembering as I’m heading back outside that Harper heard me and Seb on Zoom talking about Noah. How have I not panicked about that more? There’s just so much to worry about here, it’s making me miss stuff.

Either way, I need to get her on her own and warn her against saying anything.

I speed up, bursting out of the doors with a very enthusiastic ‘Salad!’ that makes Noah smile and Harper narrow her eyes.

‘What the fuck is this?’ she asks, turning to look at the pizza. We have three chairs around the table now, one borrowed from Noah, because Harper spends a lot of time here too.

‘It’s a pizza.’

‘Where’s the cheese?’

‘Underneath the vegetables.’

I sit down as Harper takes a slice and starts picking the vegetables off the top, leaving them like a little vegetable mountain on the table.

‘It’s really nice,’ Noah says around a mouthful. He hasn’t picked any of the vegetables off his pizza. And maybe that’s a thing we have in common, alongside the pen thing. Pens and vegetables. Pity I’ve never heard either of those things mentioned in a wedding speech (and I’ve been bridesmaid nine times. Obviously having never said no to an RSVP. I can recite that love speech from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by heart).

‘You should count yourself lucky,’ I tell Harper. ‘I could have made cheese out of cauliflower like I do at home. But I didn’t. At least you’re digging towards real cheese.’

‘You’re sick in the head.’

I don’t disagree. Instead, I take a big drink of wine and pile salad and pizza on my plate. All the while, I hold Harper’s gaze, tilting slightly to Noah and then shaking my head with wide eyes. Hopefully, the movement acts as some sort of code for don’t tell Noah you heard me declaring that I love him earlier.

Harper just smirks, which is worrying. Very worrying indeed.

Still, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she launches into a fifteen-minute monologue about the fact that her foster parents thought that it would be nice to take one of the row boats out on the loch today. I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone to have such strong feelings against row boats. They’ve always seemed like one of the more innocuous members of the boat family to me. But Harper really seems to hate them, as evidenced by the fact that she’s swearing up a storm.

At least she talks a bit more now.