The cool air felt good against her face – Penny hadn’t realized how warm she’d gotten at the therapy centre, like her emotions had been pressed up against her skin, asking for a way out. She tried to focus on the sensations in her body over the thoughts in her mind, but that lasted all of ten minutes before her tummy rumbled – she hadn’t had breakfast. She pushed through the door of the first café she saw, ordered a coffee and a croissant, and slipped into the window seat right as another woman was leaving. The woman smiled at her.

‘Enjoy,’ she said, even though Penny didn’t know her.

‘Thanks,’ Penny replied, slipping off her coat.

Penny sat in the coffee shop, cradling her oat milk latte and alternating between watching the hum-drum of the café play out, and idly watching the world pass by.

She thought of Bridges. The café she was in was similar, but bigger. Behind the counter was a young woman who looked as much of an art graduate as Stuart always had, managing to steam milk and grind beans and find extra ice when the other woman – plainer, more serious, her Levi’s so high-rise they almost reached her chest – navigated the till. People moved in and out. Two women in Lycra leggings debated loudly about sharing a scone, a middle-aged man with a very tiny dog ordered two almond croissants that looked crunchy and crispy and delicious enough to make Penny wonder if she should get one, too – even though she’d already had a chocolate one – and at one point a red-headed man in chef’s whites and an apron came out of the kitchen door carrying two plates of eggs.

‘Sorry, Aaron,’ the serious-looking girl said. ‘We had a rush on.’

‘It’s alright,’ said the chef, delivering the food to a couple sat looking at a laptop screen together, pointing at things and musing over numbers and colours.

Penny missed Bridges, and ached to be back there soon. She had to admit, she’d enjoyed Derbyshire more than she thought she would – Penny knew she’d improved her skills, and her ability to manage a team. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d done it. Apart from Uncle David falling ill in the first place, she wouldn’t change having been there. It made her appreciate the life she’d made in London all the more, and it had been pretty fun, in the end, until it wasn’t. What did she want? She wanted to be back in London, living the life she had designed for herself and not the one her uncle had given her, the one she’d felt powerless to refuse.