The strange thing about coming back from somewhere like that is how quickly normal life closes back around you. One minute you’re standing in a muddy field in Wales supervising children who have spent the last four days setting things on fire with sticks and declaring themselves wilderness experts. The next you’re pulling up to your parents’ house in Oakwood with a boot full of damp clothes and a child who smells faintly of campfire and marshmallows. The transition is… abrupt.
I cut the engine and sit there for a moment, hands resting loosely on the steering wheel, while Isla chatters beside me about which part of the trip was the best.
“Definitely the canoeing,” she says decisively. “Except Theo nearly fell in which would have been even better.”
“That would have been a rescue situation, not entertainment,” I point out.
“Still funny though.”
I glance at her. “You’re a terrible friend” I laugh.
She grins unapologetically.
The front door opens before we’ve even got out of the car. My mum is standing there like she’s been watching throughthe window waiting for us to arrive. Which, knowing her, she probably has.
“Well,” she calls. “You both look filthy.”
“That’s the Welsh countryside for you,” I say as I open the boot.
Isla jumps out of the car and immediately grabs her backpack. “Nanna, I learned how to use a compass.”
“That sounds very impressive.”
“And Theo nearly fell in the freezing lake.”
Mum blinks. “Of course he did.”
Inside the house everything feels the same as it always does. The familiar smell of dinner cooking, the low hum of the dishwasher, the soft creak of the floorboards when Isla bounds up the stairs two at a time.
“I’m unpacking!” she shouts.
“Please don’t just throw everything on the floor,” I call after her.
“I won’t!”
There is a loud thud from upstairs that strongly suggests she already has. Mum gives me a look.
“She had fun then?”
“Yeah,” I say, dropping the bags by the door. “She loved it.”
My dad appears from the living room carrying a mug of tea. “You survive the wilderness?” he asks.
“Barely.”
“Good lad.”
He pats my shoulder like I’ve returned from an expedition across Antarctica rather than a school trip in the same country.
I wander into the kitchen while Mum checks on whatever’s in the oven. For a few minutes the conversation is easy. Isla’s canoe spinning in circles. Theo blowing his survival whistle indoors. Someone setting a marshmallow on fire. The sort of stories that sound funnier once you’re no longer responsible for supervisingthem. But somewhere underneath the conversation there’s a quiet shift in my head that I can’t quite shake. Because for the first time in four days… Freya isn’t nearby. She’s not across a fire. Not walking ahead of me up a hill. Not laughing with Theo somewhere within earshot. She’s just… gone home. And the absence of her is weirdly noticeable. Yes. She’s just across the street, and if I looked out of the window long enough, I’d probably catch a glimpse of her in her kitchen. But that’s just plain weird.
“Earth to Rory,” Mum says, snapping her fingers lightly in front of my face and interrupting my thoughts.
“What?”
“You’ve gone quiet.”
“I’m tired.”
