Page 79 of Always the Bridesmaid

God, I’ve made her cry.

How could we have shared that experience and felt so wildly differently about it?

‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’ She sniffs. ‘Please go home.’

‘Sarah, if I’ve done something or said something wrong, please tell me. I thought—’

‘You haven’t done anything, it’s me. I shouldn’t have… Please go before I say something I can’t take back. Please.’

I don’t know what else to do, so I say, ‘Okay.’

I’m gutted. Confused. Devastated. Blindsided.

I can’t think straight but I do know that I don’t want to upset her more than I already have.

Grabbing items of clothing from the floor, I dress.

Can I just leave? I don’t want to but she doesn’t want me here.

I tap on the bathroom door again. ‘Sarah… I can’t leave you like this. Let me see you.’

‘Please, Charlie,’ she sobs.

I sigh. I want to break down myself.

‘I’ll go but please let me know you’re okay.’

‘I’m fine. I promise.’

There’s nothing else I can do, so I leave. On my way to the door, I hear her turn on the shower. She’s going to wash me off her when, just minutes ago, I was happily drunk on the scent of her perfume on me.

I haven’t slept a wink. A taxi dropped me home around 2a.m. and I sat on the futon in my lounge, staring at a spot on the wall where any other person might have hung a family photograph or even just a mirror. How can two people have shared the same experience and one end up elated whilst the other is crying in a bathroom?

It’s Friday. Sarah's last day in London. Tonight she’ll be staying in an airport hotel waiting for her early flight back to America tomorrow morning. And I doubt I’ll ever see her again.

Last night, at dinner, I knew – or I thought I knew – that we had mutual feelings. I let my mind get carried away with the idea that I might see her again. That there might be something between us that could last beyond these two short weeks we have spent together.

I got the first Tube to King’s Cross this morning.

Now, armed with a triple-shot coffee, leaning against the wall outside of Caffè Nero because it has a view of the trains coming and going on platforms nine to eleven, I wait for Sarah.

It’s my second coffee. The first was a single shot and it didn’t hit the spot. I couldn’t face breakfast, which is so unlike me it beggars belief. I also thought that if I got another coffee, a very strong one, it might give an explanation for my nervous energy.

My watch tells me it’s 8.03. I’ve looked at every tall, long-haired brunette who has walked past me, but none of the women have been Sarah. At one point, I moved position because a group of holidaymakers was obscuring my view, then went back to my preferred spot.

I’m trying to convince myself that it is still early, too early for an agreed meeting time of eight thirty, and that’s why I haven’t seen her yet. The alternative is unbearable.

I can’t wait any longer.

But what if she’s early?

So I take the last remaining dregs of my coffee and walk over to platform nine and three quarters.

Of course, it’s a fictitious platform. It’s a sign that only states what it is, situated between platforms nine and ten, but I have to go regardless, because it is our agreed meeting place.

I don’t care about the Warner Brothers’ studio anymore. I don’t care if Sarah turns up here just to shout some kind of derogatory words at me and tell me how much she regrets me, because at least she’ll have been thinking about me too, rather than trying to forget that our time together ever happened.

There are already tourists – mostly young students, who seem to be on an international trip – taking photographs of one another under the small sign for the fictitious platform.

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