Hi, everyone! I'm so excited to bring you the first chapter of a brand new summery story, Sunburn! This has been a product of my free time after uni has finished (and you may notice this in my first attempt at writing a 21-year-old character). I'm also really excited about the fact that it has a familiar setting... so any of you that have read Vanilla or Room Service, you're in for a treat!

Settle down and get ready to return to Walden-on-Sea! And, as always, let me know what you thought. Your comments are what keep me writing.

***

            I couldn't escape tourists.

Living in London had got me used to them – or so I thought. Maybe it was just so crowded that a few thousand people clogging the pavements with cameras and gimmicky T-shirts didn't make the world of difference. Londoners evolved to become expert dodgers, ending up in the background of ten different holiday snaps before even making it to work. There, it was kind of acceptable. You could see why people flocked to the city – because their panoramic iPhone shots of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament were actually worth showing friends back home. London was impressive.

Walden-on-Sea, on the other hand, was not.

Unfortunately, I'd had to call this sleepy seaside town on England's south coast home for my entire twenty-one years of life. In fresher's week, I'd lost count of the times I'd been met with total confusion after the constant "So where are you from?" icebreaker. It was a place familiar to almost nobody – or at least to eighteen-year-olds with any sense of fun. Most of the time, I'd settled for "Um, it's kind of near Brighton?" and hoped they were too intoxicated to want details.

Perhaps it was because I lived here, and had spent years looking out on the same stretch of ocean, but I couldn't see the slightest appeal in Walden's rickety pier and stony beach. A twenty minute drive along the coast and people could have actual sand. Surely that was a better alternative? And yet the minute May arrived, so did the beachgoers, cars piled with loungers and parasols and bottles of sun cream they really wouldn't need. The car parks filled up, queues for ice-cream stretched out the door, and the natives learnt to deal with it.

I'd noticed as soon as the road veered downhill, and my first glimpse of the sea came into view. The tourists were out in full force, coaxed by a blue sky and the subtle hint of sunshine. Our car was piled too, but with duvets and boxes and remnants of the last three years of uni life. And as the two-hour journey dwindled into its final few minutes, I couldn't shake off the feeling of mild dread that had settled in. It had been there since the first motorway sign for the coast, intensifying when it'd first specified Walden. Because when the words were in front of me, it was real: I was going home.

"Supposed to be the hottest day of the year tomorrow," Mum was saying, from her spot beside me in the driver's seat. "A good chance to get on the beach. Bet you missed that at uni, Sydney."

I glanced over, half-wondering if she was joking. "And sit amongst the five thousand day-trippers with the same idea? Less appealing."

"Oh, come on, you've spent three years in London. Don't tell me crowds bother you."

"It's not crowds." My mind wandered back to the mornings I'd spent on the tube, rammed in like sardines with dozens of other commuters. There were occasions when I'd almost been pressed in a stranger's armpit, but at least nobody made eye contact. "It's just tourists. You know – loud and rowdy, usually with a misbehaving kid or two for good measure. Hard to relax when you're at risk of being pelted with a plastic spade from afar."

Mum rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I think you're exaggerating a little."

"Am I?" I looked over, managing a smile. "You've lived here longer than I have, Mum. Maybe it's just not Walden of the good old days anymore."

With a change in direction came a sudden glare of the sun, and she reached to pull down the car visor. "Point taken," she said, with a smile of her own. "Well, if you're not so keen on the beach, make sure you take care of your other job. Greg wanted you to head down to the arcade sometime before your first day. He needs those documents so he can get you on payroll."

And there it was: a second twinge of dread, just from the mention of work. It made sense; the stack of applications I'd ploughed through in final year had amounted to nothing, and I'd stood there in my cap and gown on graduation day with no plan for the immediate future. With my finance degree unwanted by any of the big names in London, and rent on my tiny flat mounting, my excuse to stay in the city had run dry. So when Mum had called with the good news – that the owner of Walden Amusements, the dated arcade I'd worked at during pre-university summers, was looking for somebody to help out part-time with the bookkeeping – there'd really been no reason to refuse.

Other than that spending a summer counting change in an arcade straight out of the eighties sounded like a nightmare, but unfortunately, that wasn't an option for an unemployed graduate.

"I bumped into him the other day, and you know, he's so grateful to have someone helping out," she continued, oblivious to the fact I was tuning in and out. "He's got a heart of gold, and loves that place to bits, but he never has been any good with numbers. You're doing him a huge favour."

I wasn't sure how to fake enthusiasm, at least without mincing words. "Well," I said, "it's a job. Something to keep me busy."

"Not to mention valuable experience." She glanced over again, this time her gaze catching on the side of my face. "Do you think maybe you'll take that thing out of your nose when you go to work?"

Her disapproval was poorly concealed as she studied that thing, otherwise known as the silver ring in my nose. I couldn't believe we were still having this conversation, three years after it had appeared there in the first place. I didn't see the problem, or why she chose this as her main point of concern. She'd been less shocked by my hair, which had gone through a dramatic change during my first semester – a nondescript mousy style turned to short, ice blonde waves. That had certainly been a bigger change than a silver glint in my nose, but her mind couldn't be changed.

"It's fine." I waved her off. "I'm going to be hidden away in the office, not out front. And anyway, I've had this for ages, even when I used to work there. Greg didn't mind."

"Hmm." Her argument had run thin, but I could tell she wasn't happy. When it came to her twenty-one-year-old daughter, she had considerably less power than three years ago, but that wouldn't stop her voicing an opinion. "Okay. Just promise me one thing. You'll take it out for the wedding."

I nodded "Yes. For one whole day, you can tell me exactly what to wear and how to look. But just one day."

She grinned. "You know what? I'll take that."

The smile was infectious, and I soon found myself doing it too, if only for a moment. Things had been pretty crazy for Mum in the last two years, what with the birth of Daisy, my half-sister, and the stress that came with having a baby twenty years out of practice. Howard's proposal had come months later, in the midst of the chaos, but it had put a permanent smile on the face of an exhausted new mother. Since then, I'd heard nothing but wedding plans each time she called, giddiness radiating down the phone as she gushed with news about dresses, flowers or cakes. But I didn't mind. It was nice to hear her happy, especially when things had been chaotic for so long.

With silence descending, my attention turned back to the window. We were deep into Walden by this point, though in such a tiny place that didn't take much driving. The car cruised along the main seafront road, a colourful parade of shops to our right and the beach on the left. My earlier suspicions had been confirmed; the beach was packed, and I could barely make out the shore beneath the mass of loungers and striped parasols. With the passenger window open, I kept catching fractions of conversations from passing pedestrians, not lingering long enough to hear more than a couple of words. The tightness in my chest had worsened, like I'd realised by this point there was no going back.

The familiarity was overwhelming, and even more so as we moved into residential streets, drawing closer to the home I'd grown up in. By the time Mum pulled up on the drive, parking yards short of the bright red front door, the strange feeling had settled for good. This was it.

London was well and truly behind me.

And for the foreseeable future, Walden was home.

***

The rest of the day seemed to stem from muscle memory. Standing in my empty bedroom, surrounded by a dozen boxes, was the first time I had to swallow over a lump in my throat. I'd been here before – three separate Christmases that Mum would've killed me for missing – but it'd been different. Then, the bare room had been treated like a hotel, and I'd chosen to live out of a suitcase in the corner instead of unpacking. Here now, the boxes contained my entire life, and that felt a little more permanent.

Unpacking turned into a bigger job than anticipated, and one that didn't do much for my mood anyway. So I gave up. I slung a bag over my shoulder, tucking in my passport and a couple of other documents Greg had asked for, and headed out the door.

I spared a glance for the extra car on the drive. If anything, this would be the single upside of coming home. Before uni, I'd practically lived in my Mini, constantly out and about despite Walden being entirely walkable. Taking it to London would've been a stupid move; parking spaces were practically mythical creatures up there. So it'd sat on our drive for most of the time, used occasionally by Mum or Howard as a bonus car, ready and waiting for my return.

I did consider driving, for a second at most. But the pier was only a ten minute walk away, and it was a chance for some fresh air. So on foot it was.

My feet seemed to know where they were going before my brain had a chance to direct them. I'd done this walk more times than I could count, in all the weather England's summers had to offer: blazing sunshine, ominous grey skies, even the occasional thunderstorm. Today, at least, could be counted as one of the more pleasant trips. The sun beat down on my back, its heat swiftly cooled by the sea breeze. The type of weather that made me grateful for the sun cream I'd smothered on my back before leaving. And yet I couldn't quite bring myself to enjoy it. Not when London felt so far behind, a constant rush of people replaced by lethargic pedestrians, in no rush to get anywhere or do anything. A pace of life that felt painfully slow to adjust to.

Like most things in Walden, the pier hadn't changed. The same planks of wood creaked under the weight of a footstep, flecks of green paint still peeled from the railing, and the W in Walden Amusements still flickered on and off. I could've been warped into a moment three years ago, stood before the same building, and not noticed a difference.

The eerie familiarity didn't end when I pushed through the doors, emerging in a darkened bubble of noisy arcade machines and flashing lights. It hadn't changed either, and the place was almost empty; in the absence of functioning air con, the day-trippers had favoured an outside breeze over the chance of a prize. And after about two seconds inside, I couldn't blame them.

"Hello?"

Weaving around the first set of machines, I'd headed to the back corner where the office door was situated. This was Greg's natural habitat, or at least it had been three years ago – the only place with a fan, where he spent too much time scrolling through social media and clearly not enough sorting out his finances.

But as I poked my head around the door, I wasn't faced with the balding fifty-something I was expecting. Instead it was a young girl, no older than sixteen, whose striking violet ponytail drew my attention first. She looked up from sorting change into plastic bags, and our eyes met.

"Oh," I said. "Sorry. You're not Greg."

She grinned. "Well, thank God that's obvious. Slightly more hair, I think." A knot was tied in the bag in her hand, and she placed it atop a growing pile. "You've just missed him. Said he was going to the bank, so I don't imagine he'll be back for another hour or so."

I looked at her, giving the once over, noticing the weird feeling that seemed to squeeze my chest. She was wearing her uniform, the same one I'd put on every day three years ago: the shapeless red polo, emblazoned with a huge logo, and the skinniest black trousers possible to offset the unflattering top half. The colour clashed violently with her hair, which she'd dragged back into a ponytail, revealing a silver stud in her cartilage that I couldn't help but admire. Just looking at her was strange. We weren't alike, not really, but in that uniform decorated with small acts of rebellion, all I could see staring back at me was a vision of my seventeen-year-old self.

I managed to draw myself out of my thoughts long enough to hold up the envelope. "That's okay. I just came by to drop off some paperwork."

The girl studied me for a second. "Wait. Sydney, right? The new girl?"

I couldn't help the small smile that crept onto my face. "That's the one," I said. "Though I don't know whether new is the right word. I worked here the summer before uni, three years ago now, and it doesn't look like the place has changed at all."

"Trust me, I can believe that. You know that claw machine in the back corner? Doesn't look like it's seen the light of day since the eighties."

"That'd be because it hasn't." I laughed. "I get the impression that Greg's a little averse to change."

"No kidding." She folded her arms over her chest, sizing me up, before a slightly mischievous grin took over her face. Like I'd gained her approval just from this one conversation. "I'm Erin. I guess I'm the new girl, then, because I just started last week. Here for the summer, so we'll probably be seeing a lot more of each other. Although by the sound of it, you've got the better deal – you can hide away in the office while I'm on the front line exchanging tokens."

"Hey," I said jokingly, "I did my token summer. I've earned this little piece of luxury."

"Ugh, maybe." Erin pulled a face, starting to pile the bags of change she'd tied into her arms to take away. "You can leave those papers in here, by the way. I'll let Greg know you stopped by when he comes back."

I smiled gratefully. "Okay. Thanks."

She moved toward the door, ready to head back out front, but she'd barely swept past me before pausing. "I have to ask, because I love that nose ring. Did it hurt? I'm dying to get mine done, but I just about passed out when they put this thing through my ear. I'm trying to be rebellious, but it's hard when you're a massive wimp."

"Well," I said, "kind of. But I'm sure there are worse things in the world."

"Okay, good. I feel like I can be convinced." She leaned back against the office door, pushing it open with her weight while her hands were full. "Better get back out there, before the day-trippers start clawing at the door for their tokens. You know what they're like."

"Yeah," I said, grinning. "Good luck."

And then she was gone, door swinging closed behind her as she retreated into the stuffy heat of the arcade, ponytail brightened under flashing lights. Borrowing a pen from the desk, I scribbled 'Greg' on the front of the envelope, and left it on his laptop for him to pick up later.

The odd feeling of discontent still stirred deep within me, aggravated by the intense familiarity of my hometown. I knew nothing in Walden changed, but coming here today had only proved it, likeI'd stepped straight into a time warp in which I'd never been to university at all. And yet as I stepped outside the musty amusement arcade, it felt like I'd taken a single breath of fresh air, perhaps due to the purple-haired girl I'd just encountered. It was never going to be my favourite place, and I'd get out eventually – but in that moment, Walden at least seemed survivable.