I shake my head, even though she can’t see me.‘What if none of them were me?’
There’s a beat of silence.
‘Then you find her,’ Abbey says.
It fills me with dread.
‘Finish your ice cream,’ she says.‘Get some sleep.Tomorrow, you start Project Jamie.’
‘Project Jamie?’I repeat.
She hums.‘It’s got a nice ring to it.Sexy.Mysterious.High chances of emotionally imploding if left unsupervised.’
I smile, faint and shaky.‘Thanks, Abs.’
‘Don’t thank me yet,’ she says.‘This is the part where the montage music usually kicks in.Just don’t skip the hard scenes.’
We hang up.I set the phone down gently beside me.
Onscreen, Captain Sandy is still shaking her head, muttering something about needing a stronger team.
I look at her.At the chaos unfolding behind her.At the half-eaten tub of ice cream and the dim blue light of my living room.
I whisper, ‘What the fuck do I even like?’
No answer.
But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe tomorrow, I start finding out.
Here’s what no one tells you about starting over: there’s no montage music.No upbeat serenade from Natasha Bedingfield singing ‘Unwritten’ to carry you through the awkward bits.It’s just you, your own stubborn brain, and the low-level anxiety of trying to do anythingfor yourselffor the first time in forever.
I start small.
A new café a week.That’s the rule.No repeats.No chain coffee shops.Only weird cafés with terrazzo counters and baristas who run vintage bookstores on the side.
The first one smells of toasted banana bread and jazz hands.I sit at a window seat, sipping a too-expensive oat flat white, pretending not to eavesdrop on a couple arguing about whether they’re ‘on the same page about intimacy’.They’re not.
But it’s kind of comforting, in a weird way, watching other people fall apart without having to participate.
Turns out, you can romanticise your life.You just have to get really, really good at being alone in public.So, I become a professional loiterer.
I wander museums as if I’m on an artist’s retreat.I stand in front of abstract sculptures and nod thoughtfully, as if I understand what the melting blob with a hole in it is trying to say about the disintegration of societal norms.
I let time pass differently now.Slower.Gentler.No more Tinder dates.No more Friday nights at Brookie’s.Just me, myself and the consequences of my own actions.
One Sunday, I find myself in a bookstore.
I start in the self-help section.Obviously.Because if anyone knows how to fix me, it’s a ghostwritten book with a beige cover and a title that saysHow to Be Your Own Lighthouse.
I stare at a row of them:Atomic Habits,The Power of Now,Becoming
Her.After two minutes, I want to punch myself in the face and cry into a glass of lukewarm pinot gris.So, I move on.Past biography, past romance –absolutely not– and on to crime and thrillers.There might be something deeply satisfying about reading about people solving other people’s messes when you can’t solve your own.
I run my fingers along the spines, waiting for a title to jump out at me.
That’s when my phone pings.
