Page 60 of A Touch of Magic at the Comfort Food Café
Before I go to bed– or more precisely, before I pass out on the sofa– I listen to a few more empowering tracks in an attempt to plant some positivity in my brain before I sleep. ‘I Will Survive’, obviously, ‘Roar’ by Katy Perry, and the modern classic that is Miley Cyrus’s ‘Flowers’.
It doesn’t seem to do much good. When I manage to prise my eyes open, freezing cold because I’ve kicked off my blanket during a restless night, I feel far from empowered. I’m okay for approximately thirty seconds, before I remember. Then I feel like a pile of bricks has landed on my head, crushing me into dust. It’s awful and I don’t know how to deal with it.
I suppose ordinary women have their hearts broken when they’re much younger. Sally started when she was about fifteen. I’ve always been a little too careful with my heart, I guess, and now I’m paying the price. I’m like someone who has never been exposed to a germ suddenly being doused in a vat of viruses; I have no immunity at all. This might actually kill me.
I roll off the couch and onto the floor, and begin the gradual process of putting myself back together again. Or at least trying to. I take a couple of ibuprofen with a black coffee, and let that sink in before I crawl up the stairs and have a shower. I try to do normal things, like check my emails and look at work, but I’m not really in the right head space.
My office is still set up as Sally’s bedroom, so I decide that dismantling that will be a mindless enough task to keep me occupied for a while. I put the sheets in to wash, fold up the sofa, and clear the detritus she has left behind. For a woman who I know keeps a very tidy house herself, Sally is a verymessy guest– I think she reverted to being a teenager while she was here. It’s the only explanation for the half-drunk glasses of juice, the empty crisp packets and the dirty plates that have accumulated.
I gather up the clothes that were on the floor, and decide that I will wash those too. Then I will pack them all up in her overnight bag and drive to London to hand deliver them. And maybe I’ll never come back here again…
No, I tell myself firmly, I will not do that. At least not on the very first day of dealing with this new situation. Aidan is very much linked to my Budbury experience, because I met him pretty much as soon as I moved here. When I think of this place, I think of him. Is that something I can overcome, I wonder? Can I build new routines, new habits, new neural pathways, ones where he doesn’t appear everywhere?
I move my laptop and work notebooks back into my office, and assure myself that I can. That I will be all right, eventually.
The problem is, I’m a rotten liar. Especially, it seems, when I’m lying to myself. I sit in front of my desk, the place where I usually find solace, and I feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. I swipe them away, annoyed at my own weakness. I need to get a grip.
I idly google ‘How to recover from a broken heart’, and almost laugh at my own silliness. It won’t help to join an online forum where I talk to strangers about how my man did me wrong. He was never really my man, and he didn’t do anything that wrong. The best bit of advice I find is to keep busy, and try and look after myself physically as well as mentally. And, of course, to reach out for help if I feel like I’m becoming overwhelmed.
I already feel overwhelmed. This is all so new to me that I’m confused by my lack of mental focus. Will’s cheating hurt me deeply, but in some ways the divorce was actually a relief– Icould start to heal, start to rebuild, and go back to the solitary life that I’d always preferred. The situation with Martin was obviously very different and deeply damaging to my mental health. I was already a jumpy person, and he took that and turned me into someone who never had a minute’s peace. But if I set aside the lying and the stalking, how hurt was I, really?
I’d thought I wanted more with him at the time. I’d thought maybe it could work between us– barring the fact that I didn’t know his real name of course. But when it ended, was I heartbroken? I was nervous, I was anxious, and I was disappointed. I was saddened that he’d behaved like that and I was humiliated that I’d fallen for it, but heartbroken? No.
This feels completely different from what I’ve encountered before, and I’m flailing around in misery. How do people deal with this level of pain? How do they come out the other side? I genuinely feel like I’m in agony.
I have no idea what to do with myself, and I hate that. I can usually think my way out of things, or at least attempt to. This, though, has nothing to do with logical thought processes. This is raw and painful and huge.
I glance at my phone, and see that it isn’t even eleven. I have a whole huge day yawning ahead of me. I also, I notice, have another message from my sister.
Hope all is good, sis! Thanks for putting up with me. Forgot to send you this link from the twins’ party.
I click through, for want of anything else to fill my time, and find that it takes me to a website that has tiny thumb-nail shots of all the photos taken on the night. There had been a photographer buzzing around taking group shots and familyportraits, as well as a booth full of ridiculous blow-up props and silly hats.
I flick through and am ashamed to say that my eyes barely register the ones of my nieces and my family. They scoot straight to the pictures that feature me and Aidan. Us at the bar, raising glasses of champagne. Us on the dancefloor. Us wearing big plastic sunglasses and playing inflatable saxophones. Us having fun.
Damn. I’m crying again. I reach out and touch the screen, wishing it was him. I look into his bright green eyes. ‘I love you,’ I say, aware that I’m acting crazy but apparently unable to stop. ‘I love you, but by the time I figured that out, it was too late. How is that fair? Shouldn’t I have had some kind of deadline? Was I that easy to replace?’
An image of Melody comes to mind. Young, pretty, uncomplicated. Yes, it seems, I was that easy to replace.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The next three days are both incredibly productive and incredibly lonely. I throw myself into my work once I feel capable, and absolutely smash my all-time record for words per day. My agent and my editor are going to be amazed at how quickly I deliver this next book, assuming that all of the 30,000 words I’ve written aren’t complete gobbledigook. It’s entirely possible that I just wrote ‘Aidan’ 30,000 times, because he is still very much on my mind.
I keep replaying that moment when I got out of the car at Hazelwell and saw them in each other’s arms through the window. I’m mad at myself, but I’m also now a little mad at him. How strong could this relationship ever have been if he could go from my arms to another woman’s in the space of a day? No matter how much of a bitch I’d been, that seems too rapid to be respectful. Maybe I didn’t actually mean anything to him at all. Maybe once he’d slept with me, the fun of the chase fizzled out. Maybe he actually only said all that love stuff because he knew it would freak me out, knew that it would scare me off. Maybe it was all part of the plan.
Do I really think that? I ask myself, as I finish off my work for the day. Do I really think he could be that conniving, that cruel? I’d like to hope not, but as I’ve proved time and time again, I have terrible judgement when it comes to men. Moving forward, my plan is A) not to have anything to do with men, or failing that, B) let somebody more intelligent, like the Scarecrow inTheWizard of Oz, make all my decisions for me.
I sigh and close down my laptop. The urge to Google him has become almost irresistible recently. I have no idea why, and I’m fighting it. The best thing for me to do is keep busy, just like the internet told me to.
Work has been one way to occupy my mind. I’ve also started to decorate my bedroom. Despite my mood being black, I’ve gone for a very pale green, and I plan to add lavender gloss on the woodwork. For the last two nights, I’ve been up until the early hours either writing or painting. I’m very, very tired, but only by being physically exhausted do I stand a chance at getting any sleep. If I don’t wear myself out to the point of collapse, I just lie awake, torturing myself about everything. My mind is like a whirling dervish, torturing me with images of Aidan, with ghosts of what might have been.
I know Cherie has been worried about me, and yesterday she called in to drop off supplies. All the café essentials– cake, sandwiches, freshly squeezed juice, and of course hugs. I didn’t tell her the dirty and humiliating truth of what happened, just that things haven’t worked out. Icould tell she wanted more, not out of nosiness– or at least not just nosiness– but out of concern. I suspect she thinks I might creep back into my shell again, and she might be right. I hope not, but I have my doubts about my faith in humanity these days.
I’ve just put on my painting clothes– old jogging bottoms and a baggy sweatshirt– when I hear a knock at the front door. I give some serious thought to ignoring it, but all my lights areon and my car is outside. It’s like I have a giant sign on the front door saying: ‘Sarah’s home!’
I head down the stairs, attempting to tame the tangled mess that’s my hair by running my hands through it. As I do, my fingers get stuck in a tangle. My personal grooming has taken a swan dive over the last few days. I had a shower this morning, but then obviously forgot to connect brush to hair at any stage.
I suck in a deep breath before I open the door, ready to at least fake being okay. All that changes when I see who it is. Damn, I really should have invested in that peephole. I’ve felt much more secure since I confronted Scott Jones. But there are other kinds of threat– like finding a certain friend-with-benefits standing on your step.
