‘I’m guessing no’s the wrong answer.’

‘No’s usually the wrong answer,’ he says with a laugh.

I’m tempted to bring up the Yes Man book he’d lent me when we were eighteen, the one I’d forgotten all about until I read the email this morning. But I don’t because then I’d have to explain the note-to-self email to him and I’d feel embarrassed.

‘Hey, there you are,’ says Miles, paddling back in our direction. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to.’

‘How are you making that look so easy?’

‘It’s all about the bend in the knees,’ shouts Miles. ‘Come on.’

I follow Joel over to the shore, the freezing water lapping at my feet, and I’m pleased to be leaving the beach and all the bittersweet memories it brings back. We’re putting the past behind us, and I’ve got to treat life like paddle boarding, looking forward and not looking back.

Chapter 14

THEN

When I arrived at Hartland’s, I naively thought I’d spend my days sat behind a reception desk, as well as showing people to their holiday lodges. I hadn’t envisaged how varied the role would be or how the rotation I’d enjoy the most was night security. I’m not entirely sure how much I could have done if something had kicked off in the middle of the night; Lionel hadn’t given us any extra training, but apparently the big fences kept most people out and we were there to act as merely a deterrent.

Despite that fear, there were a lot of perks to the job. The first being that you had the morning off the next day and I could catch up on sleep without the threat of being dragged out on some kind of social adventure. Then there was a stillness at night in the camp that didn’t exist in the day. Apart from a few rogue lodges whose lights were on late, the rest of the park was pitch black. The constant noise of conversations and children playing faded until there was almost silence, and, if the wind blew the right way, you could hear the water crashing against the rocks at the beach.

The best bit, however, was that you worked a buddy system and I was usually paired with Joel.

‘Red Leader to Red One, do you copy, over,’ came a mock American accent over the walkie-talkie.

‘You realise I can see you from where I’m sitting,’ I said into the static. I was sat at the sun terrace, watching him at the pool below.

‘You didn’t say over, over.’

‘I can see you from where I’m sitting. OVER.’

‘Come on, we need to have a comms check, every so often, just in case something actually happens, over.’