Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A suitcase sat open on the bed, a pile of clothes stacked on side and the other dominated by books. Tala wasn't used to holidays, especially not in winter and especially not alone, and she wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to pack. Underwear and ten pairs of leggings were rolled tightly at the bottom of the case, topped with her favourite pair of jeans and three woolly jumpers. Clothes weren't her priority – she didn't care if she ended up wearing the same outfit four days in a row if it was comfortable – and she wasn't too bothered about make-up, but her books mattered.
The cabin was booked for ten days. At thirty pounds a night, it was a bargain. Not many people wanted utter seclusion in the week that ran up to Christmas and eked towards the New Year, and the owner had been more than happy to knock twenty-five percent off the price. Tala would have paid four hundred for the break: Christmas would have cost her an awful lot more, and now she wouldn't have to worry about it.
Dropping onto the end of her bed, she sorted through the novels she had packed into the suitcase. An ardent bibliophile who spent more on books than anything else but rent, her bedroom was lined with tomes that she kept in pristine condition. Her brother was the opposite: he liked his books to be worn with cracked spines and folded pages, and three children and a hectic life certainly helped achieve that goal, but, Tala couldn't abide by that.
Her books were her babies. They held a special place in her heart, poring her affection over the stories she loved and the stories she knew she would come to love. Running her finger down the perfect spine of an easy romance she was in the middle of reading, she took it out of the suitcase and slipped it into a make-up bag. Or rather, a bag that had been designed to carry make-up and yet was the perfect size to protect whatever she was reading at the time.
"Right," she murmured to herself, skimming over the contents of her case. There was plenty of space left, even with fifteen novels carefully stacked in a box within the suitcase that she had padded with socks. Tugging open the bottom drawer of her chest, she took out a couple of pairs of thick pyjama bottoms and a deliciously soft dressing gown, filling the leftover space with another jumper and a few t-shirts.
Clicking her tongue, she nodded and zipped the case shut. She didn't need to limit herself when she was driving anyway, a five hour slog up the motorway to the remote little town. She could have gone a lot further, trawling way up to the highlands, but five hours was far enough and she had already fallen in love with the pictures of the cabin.
Into an actual make-up bag, she threw an assortment of toiletries and from the fridge, she packed a sandwich she had made earlier. Something to keep her going. Emptying out everything that would expire soon into a plastic bag to take with her, she stuffed it into her backpack and looped the straps over her suitcase. She was ready to go, and the cabin was waiting for her.
There was a knock at the door before she could open it. Living in a block of flats meant people knocked on the door far more often than when she had lived with Aditya in his perfect little terraced house. It was an unwanted novelty to be back in that situation, and in a worse flat than the one she had given up to move in with him.
