Dedicated to JuniorJewels, for her lovely comment in the last chapter and her attempt at making up a couple name for Flo and Daniel (I never make it easy for you guys, do I? I should probably work on that).

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            “You sleep okay?”

            This was Gram’s question as I stumbled into the kitchen the next morning, making a beeline for the coffee pot. She asked like the answer couldn’t be found in my appearance: the way my hair was defying the laws of physics and sticking up in every direction; the multitude of creases running through my nightshirt; the dark shadows I knew lurked beneath my eyes. I put it down to the fact she was totally absorbed in her artwork, sweeping wide strokes of paint across the canvas on the easel set up in the corner of the room.

            “Mm,” I mumbled noncommittally.

            To tell the truth, my night’s sleep had been nothing short of awful, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spill the details to Gram. My mind hadn’t been able to stop whizzing through the events of the day at the speed of light, forcing sleep further and further out of my reach. Packing up the last of my stuff from the flat, the two-hour train journey here, my unexpected party invitation. They’d all been replayed in my head at least a hundred times over the course of the night.

            And that wasn’t even counting how many times I’d gone over the worst part of it all: saying goodbye to Nora.

            I’d braced myself for it, of course, but the real thing had hit home harder than expected. Really, it’d only been when she pulled me in for a hug, and I got a last whiff of the strong floral perfume she was never without, that the reality of the situation began to sink in. It was real, it was here, and it was happening. That was something no amount of preparation could ready me for.

            And when she’d leaned in and whispered “You’ll be okay, Flo,” in my ear, I found myself, through the tears, doubting my sister for the first time.

            It didn’t matter that I wasn’t moving to the other side of the world. The train journey between us was enough of a distance. Nora had been my rock for the last three years: the one thing that remained to always be counted on. While everything else in my life was morphing before my eyes, changing beyond recognition, she was always there. Until now. I couldn’t tell how I’d handle it until she was really gone.

            Three years ago, when I was fourteen and Nora four years my senior, marked the worst day of my life. Our parents had spent the evening at a dinner party across town, enjoying themselves, trusting that Nora and I were sensible enough to stay home alone. Naturally, we’d revelled in the freedom, loving the knowledge that even if just for the evening, we were totally independent.

            We didn’t realise how disturbingly accurate that statement would be until a few hours later. Asleep on the sofa, we were jolted awake by an urgent knocking at the door. The police.

            There’d been an accident. An accident involving two cars, one of them my parents’, as they made their way home. They were almost there; ten minutes longer and they’d have been pulling up on the driveway, unlocking the door, smiling to themselves when they came across Nora and I curled up together. They’d behaved themselves; they were sober. But the other driver wasn’t.

            They were taken to the hospital straightaway, but it made no difference. Their injuries were fatal.

            And on that night, in a split second, Nora and I lost both our mother and father.

            It was the starting point to the darkest period of my life: a blackened tunnel of hopelessness that seemed to have no light at its end. At just eighteen, my sister was forced to drop out of college and find a job. When she did, her hours were long, exhausting and unsociable, but the alternative was much worse. I didn’t like to think about it, but I couldn’t always stop myself, especially at late hours of the night when I found myself alone on whatever was serving as my bed that night. We camped on every one of Nora’s friends’ sofas, testing their hospitality to the edge of politeness, before we finally scraped enough money together for the rent on a flat of our own. It was by no account luxurious – cramped, slightly damp, and with a boiler that had a tendency to cut out just as you wanted to take a shower – but to us, it didn’t matter. It was our home.

            And things got better.

            At least until the day, three years later, over a bowl of cornflakes balanced on her oversized stomach, that she announced everything was changing. We were moving out, not in favour of an upgrade, but a split between Lenny’s cluttered apartment and a dinky cottage in Walden-on-Sea.

            And I ended up here.

            “What are you painting?” I asked, keen to move the topic of conversation away from what would only dampen my mood further. Flicking the switch on the kettle, my eyes forged a path towards Gram’s easel, which was covered in what looked like random splotches of paint. While both of us shared a love for art, there was no denying we differed infinitely in style. I preferred sketches, minimalist and rough-edged; Gram, on the contrary, had a passion for all things bright, bold and abstract. Her walls were covered with personal artwork, most of which I struggled to work out what they were, let alone decipher their meaning.

            “Oh, just a little something,” she answered vaguely, her paintbrush continuing to assault the canvas with surprising force. “The idea came to me last night.”

            ‘The idea’ didn’t currently resemble anything, but I wasn’t about to point this out. Instead, I nodded understandingly and returned to my coffee.

            I felt considerably better once I’d taken the first sip, pulling up a chair and collapsing into it while Gram continued working quietly in the corner. The caffeine seemed to have an instant effect; maybe it was psychological, but within moments my brain was rendered significantly more alert, the prospect of my first full day in Walden – the one that was currently staring me in the face – no longer seeming completely terrible.

            “No plans for today, then?” Gram glanced over her shoulder. Her glasses had slipped right the way down her nose, perching so far towards the end she was looking more over than through them. “Nora said you got invited to a party.”

            I sighed inwardly. Really, I should’ve known better than to assume my crazy sister would keep quiet about yesterday’s happening before heading back to London. I didn’t even know whether I was going to go to the party in the first place; I could make a safe bet on the whole thing being painfully awkward.

            “Oh, that,” I said, hoping I sounded casual. “I might not even go, anyway. I’ve got a lot of… unpacking and stuff left to do.”

            Now, Gram turned away from her painting, brush flying through the air with sufficient speed to send a splattering of green paint onto the wooden tabletop. “Oh, no, honey,” she said, “you have to go! You’ll meet the other kids in town. And it’ll be fun!”

            Oh, sure. Me inevitably making a fool out of myself in front of Daniel’s friends would be so fun.

            On top of this, it didn’t seem the greatest day for a beach party. Gram’s cottage sat in a small cul-de-sac uphill from the main streets, giving the house’s front-facing rooms a sea view. Looking out, I noticed yesterday’s pleasant weather had done a vanishing act, to be replaced by a dismal blanket of clouds that warned of impending showers, coupled with a strong wind that had already picked up. From here, at least, Walden’s stony beach didn’t look like the perfect party venue.

            “I’ll think about it,” I told her, picking up my coffee and deciding to leave her alone with her painting.

            I was going to think about it. It just didn’t seem likely that when I did come to a final decision, it’d be to go to the party. Walden was a tiny town, and whilst its close-knit community of pensioners was sweet, the same didn’t apply to teenagers. They’d probably all known each other since playgroup, friendships established before they could even string a sentence together. How on earth was I meant to waltz in and befriend them? Me, of all people?

            I was awkward enough around people I did know, let alone a group of strangers. For me to throw myself into a situation like that voluntarily? Not likely.

***

            It was an hour later that I got my first taste of the boredom that was sure to be common over the approaching summer. I’d dragged out getting ready for as long as humanly possible, even combing out the frizzy curls of my hair into something of a tamed style, which was just a few steps short of a miracle. But having accomplished that, I was stumped as for what to do next.

            Weighing up my options, of which there were shockingly few, I grabbed my sketchpad and a jacket and headed out the door.

            I thought maybe once I found a spot inspiration would strike. Maybe a pretty landscape or, at the very least, something rough and quick that I’d probably crumple up later. I just needed something to do: something other than the flurry of thoughts inside my head to focus on. But after I’d headed down past the neighbouring houses, each as compact and quirky as Gram’s cottage, and settled on a grassy spot overlooking the beach, I realised I had nothing. My mind had gone completely blank.

            My pencil was poised over the paper, ready to snap into action in seconds if an idea came to me. But nothing happened, and the empty white paper stared mockingly back.

            It stayed that way for at least ten minutes. The wind whipped past me, trying to tug my hair from its ponytail, and I could taste the salt in the air. Eventually I gave up on creativity, resigning myself to a simple drawing of Nora instead. But I had no luck with that either; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to get the curve of her bump right, and my pencil refused to capture her ever-present smile, twisting it instead into an expression that was both forced and awkward.

            My attempt lasted a mere few minutes. Then, frustration got the better of me and I ripped the sheet violently from the pad, tossing it away. The force of the breeze picked it up immediately and it floated downwards, cascading into the water below before disintegrating into tissue.

            Tucking my sketchpad underneath my arm (though I wanted nothing more than to chuck that into the ocean too), I abandoned my spot on the grass and backtracked my previous path. My feet were acting of their own accord; I was heading somewhere, if not fully consciously. It was only when I found myself on the pastel-coloured seafront that housed Walden’s main line of shops that I stopped in my tracks. I was about ten seconds from walking past – and maybe even into – the shop where Daniel worked.

            Why had I even come this way? For someone who wasn’t a fan of awkward social situations, I seemed to have a knack for creating them. Yesterday had served as sufficient proof that I turned into a dithering idiot around him, and without Nora to keep the conversation flowing, it would almost definitely grind to a painful halt.

            But I couldn’t deny the obvious. I did kind of want to see him. Just a little.

            So, despite the – probably rational – part of my brain that shouted its vehement objection, I took a deep breath and continued walking.

            I noticed the striped awning first, its blue clashing with the pale yellow hue of the building’s exterior. Overhead was a sign I hadn’t noticed yesterday; it simply read Walden Ice Cream in a mock-handwritten font. And sure enough, there he was. I could see him through the window, scooping ice cream onto cones for the customers forming a queue out of the door. Hair falling over his forehead, he was leaning over, adding a third scoop to a creation that already looked at risk of toppling over.

            It happened then. He looked up, and our gazes met.

            Oh, crap. Abort mission.

            And then he smiled.

            I had to blink a few times, wondering if I was imagining things. But then I realised he really was smiling, and at me too. Either that, or he was oddly happy to see the two elderly women sat on the bench behind me, engrossed in a conversation about what Margaret had heard at bingo.

            So I smiled back, hoping my windswept hair didn’t look too much of a mess, before hurrying past.

            I wasn’t really sure what to do next, so I crossed the road and headed for the steps that led down onto the stony beach. The pebbles dug uncomfortably into the sole of my pumps, and I had a feeling they wouldn’t feel much comfier on my backside, so I hopped up onto the wall separating the boardwalk from the beach below.

            Reopening the sketchpad and setting it down on my lap, I took out my pencil and set to work immediately. I was surprised to feel it glide easily across the paper, requiring a minimal amount of thought to pave its path. I tuned out of the noise of the waves hitting rocks and the loud chatter of the tourists surrounding me until the rough sketch of a figure, leaning down slightly to scoop a hearty helping of ice cream, began to take shape across the page.

            It was as I sat there, recreating the previous moment in tangible form, pencil to paper, that I decided maybe going to the party wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.

***

            There’s a reason why England isn’t renowned for its beach parties, and, walking down the winding path that led from Gram’s to the seafront, I found myself being assaulted by that very reason.

            The clouds had been threatening it all day, but right here, a short time past seven in the evening, they’d decided to let rip. We hadn’t even been lucky enough to get away with a drizzly shower; the rain was battering the pavement with surprising severity, and what I was sure were gale-force winds persistently threw off my balance. I’d spent a good half an hour picking out my outfit, puzzling over what would fall within the dress code, but I needn’t have bothered. I was already soaked to the bone.

            I failed to see how much partying could be done in weather like this, but I was already more than halfway there; legging it back to Gram’s would take longer than seeking shelter in the town centre.

            Unsurprisingly, when I did make it down there, I was faced with the sight of an empty beach. The rain had warded off even the bravest of tourists, and there was no party in sight.

            Ducking under the awning of the ice cream shop, I leaned back against the brick wall and sighed. My first day in Walden had been miles short of success, and I was seriously evaluating the logistics of hopping on the first train back to London. I was sure, with enough persuasion, Nora and Lenny could rearrange some furniture and find room for me in their flat. It’d be a squeeze for the three of us – let alone with a newborn baby added into the equation – but it had to be possible somehow. Putting on a brave face about moving here had seemed easier in theory; now, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up.

            Then, suddenly, my train of thought was interrupted by the sound of an approaching car. I kept my head down, hoping that all kidnappers favoured cities over sleepy seaside towns, waiting for it to pass. But the low rumble of the engine didn’t seem to be getting any more distant; in fact, the car sounded as if it had stopped directly in front of me.

            “The party’s not out here, you know.”

            My head snapped upward, following the sound of the voice. A combination of embarrassment and relief washed over me as I recognised the grinning face that I’d seen through the shop window just hours before, now hanging out the edge of the car.

            “Well, where is it then?”

            “We’re having it at Collette’s place instead.” He paused, taking in my drenched appearance with an air of silent amusement, the smile still tugging at the corners of his lips. I felt considerably less composed, water trickling down my face and dripping from the ends of my hair. “You want a lift, by any chance?”

            “That’d be nice,” I murmured sarcastically.

            Bowing my head, I scurried quickly over to the passenger’s side, wrenching the door open and collapsing, soaking wet, into the seat beside Daniel. He’d started the engine up before I even clipped my belt into place, and within moments we were heading up the street.

            I didn’t even have time to think about the many ways in which this evening could go horribly wrong.

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Me again. Lol, I literally have no idea what to write in this author's note. But I hope you liked the chapter! I'm so freaking busy, it's a miracle I had time to rewrite/edit this. This last week of school can't go fast enough.

So in the next chapter you'll meet the rest of the Walden clan... who's excited? And pleeeeeease leave me comments. I'll love you forever :-)