The Broken Hearts Book Club

‘Oh nothing, he’s thinking of sticking round here for a bit longer than he’d planned, that’s all.’ I paused for a second. ‘And so am I, as it goes.’

The last part caught her attention and she snapped her head round to look at me.

‘Really? I thought after everything that happened here, you’d be dying to get back to London.’ She realised she’d used the word “dying” and muttered ‘sorry’.

‘Me too,’ I admitted, ‘but then I went to a Broken Hearts Book Club meeting. Well, I kind of dropped in on one actually and it was amazing Elle; all those people using books to get past the hard times in their lives. In her will, Nana Lily said she wanted me to be leader of the club for three months minimum and I’m thinking of giving it a go. If I don’t like it, I can pass the baton on to someone else, but if I do then great.’

Elle still didn’t look convinced and fixed me with a shady look. ‘What about this amazing job in events you’ve got back in London? Why would you want to leave that to come up here and run a book club?’

I craned my neck to check that my parents weren’t within earshot then lowered my voice to a low hiss. ‘About that… I might’ve exaggerated a tiny little bit.’

‘How much?’

‘OK a lot; I got the sack from that job just before I came up here.’

Elle’s cornflower eyes widened in surprise. Even when she was shocked, she still managed to look like a china doll. If she wasn’t my oldest friend, I thought, I’d hate her.

‘I’m going to get bacon rolls for us then I want to know everything.’ She swirled back towards the kitchen and I knew I was in for a classic Elle Nicholls interrogation, then she threw a smile to me from over her shoulder reminding me of just how much I’d missed her.

After a full breakfast and much needed shower I felt ready to brave the outdoors. So we headed over to the Moonlight Café. George had been put off from coming after we’d told him there’d be large amounts of girl talk involved.