Chapter Nine
Dear Diary,
I’ve been at this school for a few months now and I hate maths.
My teacher, Mr Nichols, is an old dragon.
His breath smells like stale coffee, and he shouts at me when I can’t do my times tables.
He says I should know them all by now, like it’s so obvious.
He keeps telling me I can do better, but wouldn’t I already be doing it if I could?
He scribbles all over my work in red pen, and I HATE it.
Numbers don’t make sense in my head. Fractions are a nightmare. And double maths on Mondays? As if Mondays weren’t already bad enough.
That’s why I skipped double maths a few weeks ago and hid in the toilets until it was over. It worked – until lunchtime, when Mrs MacDonald found me. She is the gym teacher, and was actually nice.
She didn’t shout at me, but let me help with year seven netball. Then, she said that I could be a good coach one day. The bad part was that she insisted I go see the Head of Year, Mrs Smith. But I didn’t want to disappoint Mrs MacDonald, so I went.
Mrs Smith sat me down, and suddenly, everything just… came out.
How I’m rubbish at maths. How I don’t see the point in even trying.
It’s not as if I’m going to need maths. I’d rather just avoid numbers for the rest of my life.
Ren said he would help – he doesn’t mind numbers, so he said he’d do them for me.
I don’t know if he was joking, but I might take him up on it.
But Mrs Smith actually listened. She said she thought I might have something called dyscalculia. Mum’s booked me in for a test in a few weeks. She said it’s expensive, so she really hopes Mrs Smith is right – or else she’s marching down to the school to demand they pay for it.
Honestly? I kind of hope Mrs Smith is right. Because if there’s a reason why I find maths impossible, maybe – just maybe – it’s not all my fault.
Love,
Lydia
Lydia
A bird squawked in the early hours, startling me awake.
For a moment I forgot where I was, and then it all came rushing back.
I took some deep breaths, calming my nerves.
My hair smelled of smoke, and I found the smell strangely soothing.
My heart rate slowed, so I checked my phone and spotted a missed call from a random number. Suspected spam.
Who the hell makes phone calls these days? Probably people I owe money to and that could wait until I found a decent job.
I listened for snores or murmurs but couldn’t hear anything, besides the odd noise of birds.
In fact, the campsite is eerily quiet. I groan when my bladder shouts – no, screams – at me.
I drank a lot of water after the hike up Mam Tor yesterday.
Along with Ren’s cocktails, that was a deadly combination and I was paying for it now.
I zipped open the tent and almost gasped at the sight of the moon – a brilliant crescent glowing in the middle of the sky, stars flickering around it, lighting up the campsite.
The sky is so clear. Everly Heath didn’t have the benefits of avoiding all the light pollution from Manchester, so I rarely saw skies like this.
Ren probably saw loads on his trip, I thought bitterly, and chastised myself for the thought.
I didn’t need to be resentful, because I didn’t care.
Plus, I’d already bitten his head off a few times yesterday and hadn’t liked the sensation of my true feelings coming to the surface. It felt so… vulnerable.
I climbed out of the tent, ignoring the low call of an owl in the distance as I ran to the block of loos. As I left the outbuilding, I heard loud snores coming from Gen and Amy’s tent and made a mental note to find out who that was, so I could take the piss out of them tomorrow.
‘What are you smiling at?’ a voice whispered from next to me, and I let out a short, sharp whisper-scream. My heart pounded, my hand clasped at my chest.
‘Ren.’ I hissed.
Ren was leaning against the block of loos, a smirk on his face.
His dark hair looked wild, like he’d run his hands through it in his sleep.
He seemed so familiar like this. It brought back all of our childhood sleepovers.
Sleepovers that had wandered far too long into our teen years, when they became marred with hormones and yearning and skin.
At least for me. Ren had been oblivious to my changing feelings.
He was laughing now, his shoulders shaking. It made him look so handsome it hurt my heart. I’d not allowed myself to look – really look – at him since he’d come home.
‘It’s not funny.’
‘Sorry,’ he whispered back. ‘Was a bit funny, though.’
‘What are you doing up? Where’s Peggy?’
‘I heard you wake up. She’s still snoring in the tent. Today knocked her out.’ He paused. ‘I just wanted to check you got back to your tent okay.’
He said it frankly, as if he had no intentions or ulterior motives to hide – just frank concern for my well-being.
‘You braved the dark?’ I cocked an eyebrow.
‘I’d brave a lot more for you, Lyds.’
I blushed and glanced away, unable to cope with how my stomach threw around butterflies like confetti.
He doesn’t actually mean that.
‘Well, thanks.’
‘No problem.’ He smiled, then nodded to the sky. ‘I’m glad I woke up. That is gorgeous.’
‘Yeah, it is, isn’t it?’
We stared up at the sky, scattered with stars, for a moment.
‘Gorgeous,’ he murmured, but he wasn’t staring at the sky now.
He was staring at me. I begged my cheeks not to flush and glanced back at the sky, avoiding the intensity of his gaze.
I should have moved back to my tent and stayed away from him.
But something about the quiet, the dark and being far from our home made me feel bold.
Standing side by side. Pretending we weren’t some sort of adversaries with complicated history.
‘I could get used to this.’ Ren sounded… wistful.
I turned to see his face leaning up to the sky, his eyes closed. His shoulders looked relaxed for the first time in weeks.
‘What, camping trips?’
He shrugged, turning to look at me. ‘I guess somewhere quiet. Remote. No cars honking, people meddling. I love our hometown, but sometimes, it can feel a bit…’
‘Much.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know what you mean.’
Is that why you left? I wanted to ask. So, I used the security blanket of the dark to ask another question I’d been dying to ask since he got back.
‘How have things been, you know, upstairs?’ I tapped my forehead.
He smiled. ‘I forgot about that.’
‘What?’
‘Our weird repressed way of asking if I’ve slipped into the pits of depression recently.’
‘Well, when you say it like that,’ I said, dryly, ‘it sounds bad.’
He chuckled. ‘Nah, I like it. Makes it feel less like a doctor’s appointment.
And things are fine upstairs. Good actually.
I haven’t had an episode in a while. Some days I can wake up and it can feel like I’m walking through treacle.
But it’s not all-consuming like it has been in the past. And I’ve still got my therapist.’
‘Jan.’
‘Good ol’ Jan.’ He nods, smiling. ‘I had a wobble a couple of weeks ago. But it was mainly triggered by work.’
I frowned. ‘Work? I thought things were going well at Lily’s.’
Ren smiled ruefully. ‘It is. Going brilliantly, actually. We can open a second site.’
Pride expanded in my chest. ‘That’s great.’
‘Yeah. And I’ve picked out a second site,’ he said, kicking the grass. ‘I put an offer in on Everly Heath Farm a few weeks ago.’
Shock rippled through me.
‘The derelict one we used to go to as kids?’
Ren nodded.
The farm was a popular local haunt, especially for families.
I remembered running riot, goats chewing the paper bag of the feed Lily had bought us, and our ice cream melting down our arms. It smelled of earth and manure but always felt so…
alive with activity, kids shouting and the animals bleating, shouting parents urging us to slow down.
Ren had adored the place, even more than me and Liam.
We’d go every year for his birthday. Lily had party hats and cake in the cafe.
Then, after Ren’s mum was gone, Ren’s dad made sure to book it every year.
But it wasn’t the same. Ren confessed as much on the first birthday without his mum.
It’s not the same, he’d repeated. It’s gone.
I’d hugged him, far too young and naive to understand his pain, but I tried to be there for him anyway.
Ren nodded, aiming a sad smile at the sky. As if he was confessing his secrets to the moon… and me.
‘Bert is selling it. After his wife died years ago—’
‘Mabel died?’ My voice was thick, thinking about the smiling woman who sold tickets in the little shed at the front of the farm in long floral dresses.
She’d felt ancient to me in the nineties, but she had probably only been in her forties then, her dark hair always pinned up in a bun. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Bert keeps to himself. And since Mabel’s been gone, he hasn’t been able to keep up with it, so it’s in bad shape.
But I want to keep it going. I want to turn it into a destination.
Food, drink, boutique hotel. We could get local farmers involved and lend them some of the land to grow food or keep cattle – a farm-to-table menu.
Then, as a homage to Bert and Mabel, run events for the kids in the holidays. Pumpkin patches, strawberry picking.’
‘Christmas trees.’ My heart squeezed. ‘Easter-egg hunts! Oh, my God, craft making. You could do wreath making at Christmas!’
I shut my mouth, realising I’d got carried away and shown too much. But Ren didn’t notice my slip. He just shot me a wry smile.
‘I knew you’d be good at this.’
I ignored the way my chest expanded at his words.
‘That sounds amazing, Ren. I—’ I paused, not knowing how to word the following few sentences, which veered too close to friendship, back to us. ‘I think it would be brilliant. I’m proud of you.’