Page 80 of Always the Bridesmaid

It’s 8.11 now. Still no sign of her.

I watch a train depart for Cambridge and another coming to replace it, ultimately bound for Ely.

If Sarah were here, I’d be telling her cool facts about where some of the Harry Potter scenes were shot on location around England. I’d maybe ask her if she wanted to visit them next time she is in the country.

But it’s 8.24a.m. and Sarah still isn’t here.

It isn’t our meeting time yet. She has six minutes. We have six minutes.

As the six minutes count down on my watch face, as I check every few seconds in desperation, my heart begins to travel south.

Eight thirty. I’m still alone.

There’s a ball of emotion in my throat now. My gut is churning with fear.

I could call her, I know. Yet I don’t, because I want her to want to come.

Or maybe I’m afraid she won’t answer.

Maybe I’m scared she will and that she’ll tell me what I don’t want to hear.

The train to Ely signals that its doors are about to close for departure. As the train moves out of the station, I look across the platforms that have become visible. Perhaps Sarah is struggling to find platform nine and three quarters. Maybe she didn’t think to ask anyone where it is and she is wondering aimlessly around King’s Cross. Maybe she’s even in the archway between platforms four and five, where the Harry Potter scenes were actually shot. Or at the fake platform on the concourse, which isn’t actually a train track at all but where half a Hogwarts luggage trolley is stuck to the wall. Regardless, I check. There’s a line of tourists waiting to take pictures with the trolley but none of them are Sarah.

I don’t see her.

At 8.49, having witnessed the comings and goings of commuters on numerous trains around me, I decide to wander the station. Just in case. Just in case she’s somewhere looking for me.

I don’t see her. I even look in the cafés and eateries on the ground floor, on the mezzanine. She isn’t here.

As I descend the staircases, I keep an eye across, looking at the moving heads in the station.

It’s 9.11 and I’m back at platform nine and three quarters. She hasn’t come.

Whatever I thought was happening between us, whatever magic I have been imagining, hoping for and simultaneously disbelieving, it was nothing.

I was right not to believe. I’ve learned my lesson over the years.

Hope is just something people who have never been hurt repeatedly hold on to. It’s pointless.

I leave the station and decide I might as well walk all the way back to Clapham because I really have nothing better to do.

She’s going back to America and I meant nothing to her. As I’ve meant nothing to most people for most of my life.

30

SARAH

I am exhausted. Physically and mentally wiped out. I missed my usual Monday morning yoga session with Izzy and Becky because I just can’t face them. I don’t want to answer questions about my London trip.

And the last thing I want to do is be trudging into our office on Lexington Avenue, all of my limbs heavy with guilt, hurt. Drew is my boss and one of my best friends but right now, he’s also one of the very last people I want to see or speak to.

I contemplated calling in sick for what might have been the fifth or sixth time in my entire career but I learned after Danny died that life continues and I have to continue with it.

After pushing through the revolving glass doors into the firm’s high-rise building, I quickly switch out my sandals for my work heels and stand taller than I feel, straightening my back for what feels like the first time in three days. The first time since London. And only because I have to.

Marty, one of the named partners, steps into the lift just as the doors are about to close. I decide to leave my shades over my eyes for now.

It is completely innocuous when he asks, ‘How was the wedding? How was your vacation?’

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