"I forgot how big the balcony was without the mattress," Darren said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He was right: without her duffel bag and her books and her clothes strewn across the wooden panelling, the balcony looked huge. "It'll be quiet in here without you."

"What can I say? The party don't start 'til I walk in," Fran said, hefting the bag on her shoulder. It had taken her the best part of the morning to pack, but that might have been because she spent a lot of time stuffing the extra rock she'd brought from the store on the promenade into the front pocket. The duffel bag bulged like it would split apart at the seams at any second, and the extra weight was making her shoulders hurt, but in Fran's mind it was worth the pain.

"Well, I wouldn't stretch that far," Darren said, chuckling. "But...well, it was really nice to have you here. And I'm glad everything worked out for you in the end. Looks like we both got what we wanted."

"Well, hopefully," Fran said. They'd broken some barriers, sure. But the two of them still had work to do when they got back. If she'd gotten this far, they could power through the rest.

"Well, all the best," Darren said, as they started to walk down the stairs. "Come back whenever you like."

"I will!" Fran assured him, hopping to the ground floor.

"Bye, Darius," she said, waving at him. He was slumped in the chair at the till, one headphone in his ear, the other dangling down his shirt. "I'll send you some tea so you don't forget me."

"That's really not necessary," he said.

"Aw, come on," Fran said. "I'm going back home. Don't I even get a 'I'll miss you?' or 'I'll never forget the time we spent together.', et cetera..."

He didn't say anything, but he smiled a little bit, one eyebrow raised, as if to say 'don't push it'. Fran decided to take it. It was better than nothing.

She walked slowly around the store, remembering the first time she'd walked in here just over a month ago. It had lost that awe she'd had when she'd first walked in, as if she was walking into a piece of her imagination perfectly reconstructed in real time. Instead it held familiarity, and the soft echoes of memories she'd made here. It felt like home.

"Ready to go, darling?"

Fran turned to face her mother, who was standing in the doorway. She was dressed casually today: no makeup, hair falling around her shoulders in loose curls, and a smile crinkling the edges of her eyes. The sunlight framed her figure so she seemed to shimmer with light.

"You ready for this?" Fran said, coming to stand by her.

Her mum nodded. "No more running," she said. "I made that decision on the way back. No matter how bad it gets, I'll sort it out. I don't want to be scared anymore."

"And I'll be there to help," Fran said. "We'll do it together. And I made a list of mother-daughter activities we can do together when we get back, so we can get started right away!"

She smiled. "Well, it's a long journey back. I'm quite happy to just take it easy for tonight. Maybe watch a TV show or something..."

"Oh!" Fran said. "I was thinking about it last night. There's this show called Love Island that was showing recently. It's like fifty hours beginning to end, we can probably finish it by the end of the week if we start watching as soon as we get home."

Her mum tilted her head back and laughed, soft and bright, like the light streaming through the windows of the store. 

"Sounds wonderful."

END.