You Were Better When I Was Gone Chapter 04
My first week in London, the jet lag refused to let go.
At 3 a.m., wide awake, I sat on the windowsill of my rental, watching the streetlights flicker. My phone screen glowed.
Sophie’s Instagram update. Nine photos of all of her and Luke. Restaurants, movies, shopping malls.
Caption: “So bored without Sarah~ Luke, you’re gonna have to keep me company ;P”
In the comments, colleagues teased: “When are you two making it official?” / “Childhood friend becomes the side chick? LOL” / “Sarah leaving is just clearing the way, huh?”
Luke replied to one: “Don’t talk nonsense.”
Sophie replied to that comment with a shy emoji.
I stared at the screen for a long time. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something colder, a hollow kind of confirmation.
So this was what my leaving did, not leave a gap, but fill one. Without the clumsy third wheel, they could finally lean into each other naturally.
I set the phone down and pressed my palms against my knees until the feeling passed.
Emma came in with two mugs of hot chocolate. “Can’t sleep? What are you looking at” She glanced at my screen. “Is that your ‘best friend’? The one you grew up with?”
“Yeah.”
Emma pressed a mug into my hands. “Put the phone down. You start your new job tomorrow.”
I took a sip. The chocolate burned my tongue. I muted Sophie’s Instagram, then Luke’s.
First day at work, everything was foreign.
All-English environment. New colleagues. A completely different rhythm.
During meetings, I followed along in fragments, taking notes until my hand cramped.
But nobody called me Dummy. Nobody imitated my nervous stammer. Nobody said “even she could do it” when I got something right.
At lunch, a colleague complimented a detail in my proposal. Just a normal, offhand compliment. I almost cried, my eyes stung, and I had to look down at my plate for a second.
That night, I worked till nine. On the way home, a message from Luke.
“Been a week. How’s it going? Work okay?”
I replied: “Fine.”
He followed up: “Sophie said you muted her on Instagram. She’s pretty upset.”
I didn’t reply.
Another message: “Sarah, what are you even mad about? She said she’s sorry.”
Same script. She’s upset, so I should soften. She said sorry, so I should forgive.
And the million-dollar deal I lost. The dignity I lost in front of my colleagues. All those years of being laughed at.
None of it mattered, because I was Sarah.
Sarah is slow. Sarah is sensitive. Sarah is easygoing.
Sarah doesn’t really get angry.
I closed the chat and opened my work email.
Week two, week three, week four.
Slowly, London started to feel like a place I could breathe in. Work clicked. My pace quickened. Emma said I smiled more.
Luke’s messages also changed, from one a day to three, then morning, noon, and night.
At first, they were normal check-ins. Then they got stranger. “Who did you have lunch with?” / “Is that colleague a guy or a girl?” / “Why didn’t you reply over the weekend?”
I answered briefly, or not at all.
In the fifth week, at 4 a.m., he video-called me.