Page 10 of Counting Down To You

Ed smiles. “Nope. This is all yours.” He places my suitcase just inside the front door, then gives me a friendly wink. “You must have friends in high places.”

I wonder if Cal pulled some strings to get me this.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ed says. “I’m sure you need your rest and so do I—I’ve got a pickup at midday.”

“Thank you so much for coming to get me.”

“Of course. Brooks hasn’t arrived yet—though I’m sure you know that—so if you can’t get hold of him for whatever reason, you just swing by the reception desk for anything you need, okay?”

“Ah, right.” Am I supposed to know who “Brooks” is? “Okay. Thank you.”

“See you around.” He offers me a goodbye salute before heading back the way he came, crunching across the gravel and snow.

I head into the cabin, shutting the door behind me, and feel a laugh bubble out of me as I take it all in. It’s small, yes, but not that much smaller than the living space in my flat. I head through to the back, find a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. A bathroom, all to myself. With an actual bath. It, too, smells of pine, and the wooden walls and floors make it feel like a sauna. There is a double bed, which takes up most of the space, and the walls are adorned with paintings—mainly of fruit, for some reason.

I peer through the bedroom window, which looks out toward the pine forest. I can’t see the mountains from here, but I feel like I can sense them, watching over me. Again, I notice how quiet it is. I never thought of my flat in Ealing as particularly loud, but maybe I’m just used to the noise.

After propping my calendar up in its rightful place on the bedside table, I change into flannel pajamas, brush my teeth, and wash my face—and feel a little more human. I clamber gratefully into bed, groaning at the feel of the soft mattress, the crinkle of crisp new sheets.

I check my phone. 3:06 a.m. So that means I can have a solid seven hours’ sleep, as I don’t need to be on deck until lunchtime tomorrow. I was supposed to pop in to say hello to the staff this evening, but I managed to get an email to them explaining I was delayed, and Ed reassured me it would be fine. There’s a message from Mum, asking if I got here safely, and a WhatsApp from Cal, which is simply a GIF of a snowboarder falling face-first down the mountain.

I snort quietly, then smile up at the wooden beams stretching above me.

I did it, Robyn. I’m here.

I glance at the calendar. It is, technically, the third of December. So why not open it now?

I carefully open the square, nerves jangling. Given where the first two got me, I’m not quite sure what to expect.

Say yes to something you’d usually say no to.

I remember this argument with Robyn a few years back, right after we moved to London together. “Saying yes is almost always a brilliant idea,” Robyn was insisting. What was it in relation to? A party I was refusing to go to, maybe? “You regret the things you don’t do more than the things you do and all that.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Is that true, though? I feel like I frequently regret saying yes. And saying no is often an excellent idea. Like I have zero regrets about saying no to that first flat you wanted us to rent.” Robyn had insisted it “wasn’t that bad,” when in fact there was black mold around the windows and what I was pretty sure were mushrooms growing out of the floor in the downstairs loo.

“Hmmm. Okay that was fine to say no to. But saying no to the guy who asked for your number the other night was not.”

“We’ve literally just moved here! I need a job before I get a boyfriend.” And I had no idea what I even wanted to do for a job—surely that needed to come first.

“Yes, because him asking for your number is the same thing as a marriage proposal.”

I smile to myself as I switch off the lamp. Say yes to something. That’s got to be easy enough, right? And with that thought in mind, I bring up my audiobook on my phone, press play and fall asleep to the sound of Robyn’s voice.

—

I wake to my phone lighting up on my bedside table, message after message popping up on WhatsApp. I reach for it, blinking to try to adjust to the sliver of pale sunlight finding its way through the mostly drawn curtains.

More messages pop up even as I unlock the phone, all from my university friends’ WhatsApp group, comprising five of us in total. I quickly open the chat and scan down.

Ali WHO is this guy on your insta story??

Omg just looked, wow. Something you’ve been keeping from us, Al?

She’s been keeping a secret from us! I’m offended.

I’d keep it secret from you, too, tbf.

Followed by a series of GIFs, more questions over who the guy in the photo is, then demands to know how France is.