Page 5 of You, As You Are

Arghhh.That didn’t matter. Body autonomy was a thing and she’d rather not be looked at by anyone – not even her own grandma – like this.

Most of the bubbles had disappeared so Maisie had to make do with a face cloth covering the most touch-neglected part of her. Her arms weren’t enough to cover her breasts trying to float to the surface of the water like they thought she was drowning and in need of floatation devices, but they were better than nothing.

Vera sat herself on the closed lid of the toilet – one of those wooden-effect ones, barely three feet away – and pushed her hands out in the air. “I have had thegreatestidea.”

Was she drunk or just happy? “Go on then.” Maisie held her breath.

“Moo, you have no friends here.”Harsh.“You should join my walking group.”

“What?” shot out of Maisie before she could keep it down.

The small, square facecloth attempting to protect her modesty bobbed up, and she snapped her hand to shove it back down, trapping a corner between her ample thighs.

“You should come hiking with us,” Vera said.

The enthusiastic suggestion was so absurd that Maisie laughed.

Was this her grandmother’s way of telling her that she needed to exercise? She exercised enough without being forced to do anything else. In London, she’d walked everywhere. She’d stood at her desk with a walking pad to keep her moving. Granted, Maisie couldn’t do that here, since the living room table she’d claimed as a desk was far too low, unless she wanted to give herself even more back ache than she already had thanks to these bloody buoys on her chest.

“Me?” she squeaked.

“Well who else? My friends all said tonight that they would love for you to join us.”

A chuckle still puffed out from Maisie’s throat.

“Moo Moo” — Vera looked at her sternly — “you cannot live here with only me to talk to. I’d like to see you make friends, and these are all lovely people.”

“It’s not the people, it's thehikingthat I—” Her hand slapped the water to trap that bloody facecloth again. “I don’t think I’d be good at it.”

There was no point in denying she was a larger woman, and her knees ached justthinkingof hills.

“Oh Moo Moo, we don’t race one another. We go for gentle strolls through the countryside, that’s all. And there’s always a café at the end.”

Maisie could not be bribed with the promise of food. Well not in this circumstance, anyway. Not when getting to that food required a few miles of rambling through the countryside first.

“But—but …”

Vera patted her arm and smiled. “Just come for the walk tomorrow? It’s only a short one, and I think you would enjoy it.”

Maisie sank a little lower into the bath. Hernainwas right; she shouldtry and make at least one friend whilst she was here, someone who could hopefully make her miss London a little less. She didn’t know much about Vera’s hiking buddies, but the odds were that she’d get along with at leastoneof them.

She sighed and pushed a reluctant smile onto her lips. “Okay. I’ll come tomorrow.”Once.That’s all she had to do. Then she could say hiking wasn’t for her and never go again.

“Excellent.” To see her grandma happy was a good enough motive. “Oh, I have some other news.” Just when Maisie thought she’d be given a little space, Vera said, “Lily’s granddaughter is moving up to Edinburgh.”

“Okay …” She didn’t know Lily, or her granddaughter. Or what this had to do withher.

“Which means that her flat will be available to rent.”

It took Maisie a second to realise why she was being told this. “You want me to move out?”

Vera’s delicate features put on an excellent show of being kind about it whilst Maisie’s pulse awoke. “I love you living here, Moo, but you need your own space.”

That was … well,true.But she’d only just gotten here. And she was only here because she was supposed to help and keep an eye on Vera, occasionally reporting back to her parents and siblings. How was she supposed to do that if she moved out?

“Where’s the flat?” she asked, hoping that it’d be far enough away, preferably in another town, for her to be able to counteract the suggestion.

“It’s above a shop in town.”

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