The Call Sheet

Chapter 1 - Sarah

I read an article once (ok maybe not an article, it was a Reddit thread, but same difference) asking what happens after the credits roll at the end of the Rom Coms, after the main characters reunite, say I love you, say yes to the proposal or say 'I do'. That all we see is the happily ever after but what happens after that?

Well now I know, in fact not only do I know but I am currently living the excruciatingly painful reality of what happens after the credits roll. When you do everything right but it is still not enough. You meet the guy, you get the job, you say yes and you move to the big city. But no one ever tells you what to do when the script flips and you are left with burnt and charred remains of a life you had dreamed of for as long as you can remember.

Now here I am, alone, standing in Trafalgar Square watching all the tourists take photos by the fountains. Couples giggle, kissing, holding each other as they pose for photos to commemorate the euphoric feeling of love that swells and bursts out of you while you are on holiday, relieved from the pressures of everyday life. These public displays of affection make my left hand ache and throb like an open wound. Reminding me of the nakedness and lightweight feeling of my ring finger, where only a matter of months ago sat my bespoke engagement ring that had been years in the planning. Now it is just a constant reminder of my failing and my delusions that someone could possibly love me as much as I could love them.

I can't help but laugh to myself as I think of the people around me as 'tourists' as if I am somehow a step above. This is my own vain attempt to make me feel like I somehow belong in the large and mass emptiness of London. I do not belong here. I never did. I am but a glorified tourist with imposter syndrome. London was never my dream, it was Matthew's - ha, was it even his dream? I thought it was, I thought I knew all Matthew's dreams, I thought I knew Matthew. Clearly I did not. So who knows maybe it was no one's dream and we were both in an extended game of chicken for 10 years to see who would jump first. It was him - of course it was him. So now I am left with a broken heart, broken dreams and a ridiculously priced flat that I can barely afford. But what are my alternatives? I can't go home, that would be admitting defeat. I can't go back and be met with the questions, the judgements, the snide, sad and pitiful looks of "Silly Sarah, always the bridesmaid, never the bride", "we all knew it would never last, he was too exciting, Sarah too timid'. No. I won't go back to that. I am here now, I've made my bed, now I have to lie in it - as my mother would say - no matter how cold, empty, lonely and bloody expensive it is. I have to see this through.

After my daily failed attempt to 'romanticise my life' I leave Trafalgar Square, swarming with people, feeling even more lonely than when I went in. I head for the tube, ironically being in the tube is the only place that I can find solace in the last few months. Being underground seems to be the only place I can breathe again. It feels like a magic stop button, a freeze in time where nothing exists. Like a portal connecting you from past to future, where all things stop. While the rest of London seems to hate the underground, the noise, the smell, the being crushed together like sardines in a can (ironically it also smells like a sardine can in the summer months), I love it. This may have something to do with the night that Matthew... No, nope we aren't bringing that thought up. Push that back down otherwise I will be paralysed with the pain. Anyway on that night, I got on the tube and rode the tube from my stop until it reached the end of the line. I don't even know how long I was underground for. All I remember is when the tube terminated at one station, I got on another one until it terminated also. I did this until I had nowhere else to go and had to pay for an overpriced hotel room near the underground station. I couldn't go home - not that I had a home anymore. But once I got into the hotel room the paralysing pain started again.

So that's what I did, every evening for 3 weeks, I rode the tube. I read, sent emails, listened to Podcasts and watched Netflix all while on the tube. Only when the last tube was going did I then head back to the flat. When I could be sure Matthew would have gone to bed, given up the hope that I would return in time to have a conversation. I would sneak in, grab something to eat, lift my outfit for the next day out of my already packed suitcase and curl up on the sofa to sleep.

This has been an argument, Matthew had at first insisted that he would take the sofa and I should have the bedroom, very chivalrous of the man who was kicking me out of our flat. But no, there was no way I was ever stepping foot in that bedroom again, let alone get into that bed. The very thought made me want to scrub my skin in the shower for hours. I'd rather set that room on fire than put my foot over the door.

Instead every morning I got up before he would be awake, got my stuff and headed to the gym. More out of necessity than wanting to exercise. I was paying a ridiculous membership fee simply due to the brilliant facilities in the changing rooms. This allowed me to shower, iron my clothes, get changed and get ready for work. Bonus points it was a Matthew free zone.

I signed the lease on the first available one bedroom flat that I found, it's not the most convenient location for commuting to work but it was somewhat within my price range so it would do. I could have definitely gotten somewhere cheaper by renting a room in a house share but I am chronically shy and introverted and besides who really wants to live with someone who is going through an existential crisis as their world falls apart around them. Nobody. So a one bed flat where I could fall apart and put myself back together in the privacy of my own space would do the trick. It also helped Matthew give me somewhat of a lump sum in the split. Not quite what I would have been entitled to if we had made it down the aisle and divorced. He knew it and I knew it but it was something that could soften the blow after 10 years of loyalty and support ended. In essence it was the very least the prick could do and he knew it.

That is where I am headed back to now, my own little private space in London. It no longer feels like an empty square box storing my failings, it feels like my home. Sacred and precious where I can be my full self. Not that I really know who that is. I've always been part of a twosome for as long as I can remember, 'Matthew and Sarah', childhood sweethearts. I am not quite sure I know who Sarah Hayes is. What does she like? What does she stand for? What is her favourite food? Before now I liked what Matthew said I liked, what he was interested in watching, eating or talking about. It was always easier to say yes than try and suggest anything different for fear of hours of silence, eye rolls and sighs.

Now I have the space to develop who I am and my views and it is fucking terrifying. Where are you meant to start? I've read the books on how to do it, of course. That was never the issue I have always read, it was one thing Matthew never tried to control (too much) mostly because he didn't care, it did not interest him, reading was not his thing it was 'boring' and 'pointless' in his view. Of course he did draw the line at self help books - what could they possibly teach me about myself that he didn't already know or could show me - GOD I was such a fool!

Some people may be excited to reinvent themselves at 27 years old. Not me, I liked who I was. I liked that my life was planned and organised like a series of checkboxes or at least I thought I liked it, maybe I just liked the security or had Matthew just told me that I liked it? Now I don't know where to start, how to be me. But I guess what I have learnt about endings in the last few months is that they aren't really endings, they are just different points to start the next chapter.

So that is what I am going to do, I am ready to start. Ready to start being happy, ready to start saying yes, ready to start putting myself first for the first time in 10 years, ready to start living. I am ready to start being unapologetically Sarah Hayes, whoever that may be and I am sure as hell excited to find out.