Sunday September 21st 2025
OK. So, in the interest of talking the feelings out loud to anyone who will listen, including my own diary: my anxiety has been bad since the argument with Jones.
Feel like the whole of my insides are sort of poisonous.
Churning and swilling around like something toxic in my belly.
And my brain’s full of panicky white noise, and I’m just worse at everything right now, which makes me more anxious, because I get anxious about being bad at stuff, so here I am, swan-diving into a vicious spiral.
Right! Cheering up now!
Sorry, I’m actually done with this fake positivity. This is my diary, for God’s sake. Who am I pretending for?
Guess it was naive, really, thinking this place could be my dream life. Your dream life isn’t a place, it’s not a job, it’s not a persona you give yourself: independent mama-to-be in her Boden dress! It’s a dream. Not real.
The fear’s real. That’s about it.
Tuesday September 23rd 2025
Hey. It’s me again. Charlie Jones, instead of a terrified little fawn-type creature wandering around in her clothes.
It’s good to be back. The feeling is still there, but I can see glimpses through the clouds now. The world doesn’t look totally terrifying, all is not lost—I know I’m OK, even if I don’t completely feel it.
What’s set me off (kind of hate this phrase—is very “hysterical woman”—but can’t think of a better one) is what Jones said about Galoshes. Specifically, the fact that my issues with Galoshes are the reason the shop isn’t making more money.
Truth is, if Galoshes liked me, we would already be serving Doc’s biscuits and fancy flat whites. We’d have autumn decorations that weren’t constantly being rearranged, and stock laid out the way we wanted it, and staff who actually listened to us.
I’ve tried so hard to impress Galoshes, but I’m still failing, and because of that, I’m either going to lose my job here in two weeks’ time, or…Jones is.
What would he do? Would he go back to the mainland? There are so few jobs here out of season—what else could he do?
So…yes. The anxiety is a little quieter now that I’ve figured out where it’s coming from, for sure. But the truth is, I’m still scared.
Let’s focus on the good things.
The catalog of donors. That letter from the London fertility clinic, explaining how encouraging the results of my tests were. The possibility of a future I can build all on my own.
The cows. Have formed a weird bond with a few of them, who often come over to eye me on the walk to the shop. They don’t ask anything of me, they just hang around, like they know I might want company. It’s kind of sweet.
The autumn sunshine. Crisp blue island skies. Birdsong at dusk. Ormer, basically—the clean air, the open space, the earth beneath my feet.
Jones. He knows I’m not myself at the moment.
He doesn’t try to talk to me about it—just does little things to make my life easier.
Handles the early-morning deliveries at the shop so that I can go for a run when I wake up.
Quietly stores my leftovers in the fridge if I don’t eat a proper meal in one sitting, because he knows sometimes I can manage a second try later when the anxiety’s loosened up a bit.
And yesterday he just…put his hand on my shoulder.
He didn’t say anything or do anything, just put his hand there.
We hardly ever touch except by accident.
I don’t dare—I know I’d like it too much.
It was strange how affecting it was, having his hand resting on my shoulder.
I’ve never had someone just accept how I’m feeling that way before.
Whatever the reason we ended up living this strange, shared life together, I’m grateful for him—even if he is an extremely troublesome distraction.
Have been thinking. Wonder if part of the reason my anxiety’s got worse lately is that I’m feeling a bit…guilty. And not just about the job stuff—about the people here.
I knew when I decided to come to Ormer that I’d have to hold parts of my past back from the community I hoped to join here.
Wanted new friends, new neighbors, and it didn’t bother me that I’d have to keep the odd thing from them, because we all do that, right?
Even Brianna doesn’t know everything about me.
But now I’m here, it’s different. Have ended up sharing so much of my real self with people—just last night Rosie and I went to the pub and ended up swapping notes on the ridiculous shit we both worry about, and it was so lovely.
Came home feeling the best I have in ages.
Guess I hadn’t counted on wanting to share myself (my real self?) with so many of the people here.
After all, never did much of that back home.
Also hadn’t counted on Jones.
It’s even harder to hold myself back with him than it is with the others.
He’s a proper empath, I think—he hurts when you’re hurting, he cares.
Can see why he turned up here determined to keep everyone at a distance.
If you let people in that way, just by nature, then it must be extra painful when they let you down.
But look at this conversation we had at dinner tonight.
This is classic Jones. Planned to chat about the shop—“what’s up with Red and Toby” was top of my agenda—but instead we ended up talking about what it means to be a good person.
The man cannot do surface-level. It’s deep chat or nothing. Here, look:
“Do you believe in karma?” he asked me, spooning the rice onto our plates.
Had made korma, which was, genuinely, how this had come up.
“Not really. I think things happen for a reason, though.”
“What reason, then?”
This made me pause.
“I think people maybe…get what they deserve.” I winced as I said it. Wasn’t necessarily a nice thought.
“Isn’t that karma? The idea that your luck is influenced by your good and bad decisions in the past?”
We made our way to the table. Outside it was already dark—the evenings are drawing in now, and we’d closed the curtains on the long windows that line one side of the stables, to keep it cozy.
“I guess I like to think I’m not just the decisions I’ve made. That maybe even when I was making bad ones, I was still a good person.”
One of the things I love about talking to Jones is that he never sidesteps or tries to laugh things off. He absorbs what I’m saying and really thinks about it, every time, no matter what it is.
“I wish I had your faith in yourself.”
This took me aback. He saw my expression.
“I know you say you don’t know who you are these days. But you do believe you’re a good person,” he said.
“I guess…I do. Actually. Deep down. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and my brain does annoying stuff that I hate, but I think generally, my intentions are kind.”
I watched how this landed with him.
“Your intentions,” he repeated.
“Right. I mean, what is good and bad? Everyone has different ideas of it, don’t they?
” I shrugged, reaching for a paratha, hot from the frying pan.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
I spend a huge amount of time trying to work out what other people think of what I’ve said and done, but really, that’s not a sensible way to work out if those things are ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ because you’d never get the same answer.
Galoshes thinks I did the wrong thing suggesting Toby run the farm shop solo on the morning when we were helping out on the farm; Toby’s mum thinks I did the right thing. ”
“You definitely did the right thing.”
“Well, that’s your opinion, too, but thanks.
What I’m saying is, I know my intentions were to help Toby see his potential, and push him—gently—into building his confidence.
My intentions were kind. I won’t get everything right, obviously, and if it had gone wrong I’d have felt really sorry about it, but I wouldn’t think that decision made me a bad person. ”
After a long silence, Jones turned his face away.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
He wiped his eyes.
“Oh, God, sorry—did I make you cry?”
He shook his head and then, laughing at himself, nodded.
And I just fucking melted. This man. I never knew it could be sexy to see a guy cry, but it was.
Something about the combination of hard muscle and the way he turned his face away, the vulnerability in someone so strong…
It made me want to crawl into his lap and hold him, get closer, get as close as can be.
“I just needed to hear that,” he said hoarsely. “Thank you. It made me feel…”
“Sad, apparently,” I said, pointing to his tears. Trying to break the tension. Anything to stop me reaching for him.
“No,” he said. “It made me feel like I could let something go.”
Jones and I have both very pointedly left our pasts in the past. That’s fine when you’re being rivals, or frenemies, or coworkers, or even friends, which I think is where we’ve got to, now.
And it’s fine in a crush, too—I fancy Jones, but I don’t need to know what he was like when he was growing up.
But as he scrubbed the tears from his cheeks, I realized I really wanted to know what he needed to let go. I wanted to know everything. Past, present, future.
And that…that’s a major worry.