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CAMILLA: I got it. Don’t worry.
ME: Thank you.
CAMILLA: How did it go with Hugo? Henry told me he got back last night. Wasn’t expecting that.
ME: I ended it. It’s not going to work.
CAMILLA: Are you sure?
ME: Yes.
CAMILLA: I heard him tell Anna he’s going back tomorrow.
ME: I’m not at the flat.
CAMILLA: WHAT??? WHERE ARE YOU?
ME: Don’t tell him.
CAMILLA: Oh, God. You went home.
ME: Yes. Please don’t tell anyone.
CAMILLA: Of course I won’t. He was heartbroken when he got home, though.
ME: I’m not exactly bouncing off the walls myself.
CAMILLA: Why do it? I know how you feel about him. Give it a chance.
ME: Mum’s shouting. I think it’s time to feed the chickens. Talk to you later.
I tucked my phone against my pillow and got up, leaving it there on charge. It wasn’t a total lie—I could hear Mum shouting outside, and that generally only happened when we spoke on a morning and the chickens were staging a breakout.
Or they were just hungry.
Mum had hung her old dressing gown on the hook behind my door, and I gratefully wrapped it around me. It really was old and tatty, but it was still so comfortable at the same time.
I tied the belt as I headed downstairs. The cottage was little more than a two-up, two-down, old house, but it’d come with an acre of land that Mum had truly loved developing into her own chicken paradise.
That was how she’d gone from a no-pet kinda woman to having thirty chickens.
“Good morning,” she sang, setting one of the feeders down for a batch of particularly fluffy chickens. “You’re up early.”
I clutched my arms around myself. “I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d come and see the chickens.”
“Good, you’re just in time to help me get the eggs.” She shut the door behind her and handed me a wicker basket. “They’re all out. Just unlatch the nest boxes and pop out their eggs.”
That sounded a lot easier than I thought it would be.
Fortunately, she was right. None of the modern-day dinosaurs were in their coops, so I was able to unlatch the boxes from the outside and collect all the eggs that were nestled in there.
Being in the countryside was refreshing.
It’d been weird to be in London, if only for one night. The city noises seemed so foreign to me now. Being here and woken by the sound of cockerels and clucking and sheep baaing was far more comfortable.
Maybe this was where I was supposed to be.
The country.
