Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan
Chapter Five
The party noise that night was . . . prolonged. Marisa tucked her head under her pillow and found she was too exhausted even to cry. Sleeping had been hard for so long – possibly because she was taking so little physical exercise she simply wasn’t tiring herself out enough. But this was pushing her beyond her limits.
She looked at the link Caius had sent over. Well. It was there, it was available and it was a lot less than she was paying at the moment to live in a lovely two bed right in the middle of a vibrant city, even though she couldn’t take a single step into that vibrant city; she barely looked out of the window.
And what choice did she have? Nobody wanted her, not really. She couldn’t face crashing her mother’s full life with her sadness and gloom; her mother had loved her own father, of course, but she had taken a more pragmatic view. Life was for living and celebrating: he had been old, very old, and had had a long and happy life with a family he adored and a job which, while it didn’t make him a rich man, had made him a satisfied one. So the blubbing and the dressing gowns at teatime seemed to her mother self-indulgent at best; at worst, an active insult to a man who lived and loved and worked his whole life. Marisa didn’t know how to bridge the chasm between her mother and herself. She didn’t know how to bridge the chasm between herself and the rest of the world.
And the idea of going out and meeting other people, finding somewhere else was . . . it made her freeze. It wasn’t possible. Not at all. No.
She looked at the location again.
Her friends all promised to charge down to visit. They also wanted to organise a big leaving Exeter bash for her, but she said she was just too busy at work. Also, she had a feeling Olive was about to get engaged. Which was brilliant, amazing, she should be thrilled for her. And yet she felt nothing at all. It was terrifying. She texted Mahmoud, who just said, yeah babe, cu round, which didn’t make her terrified, it made her sad – again, with herself, for settling, always, for so little, for always being afraid to ask for what she wanted.
Nazreen was disappointed, of course; she’d wanted Marisa back in the office, and sharply asked how long this was for. There was a limit to how much admin work there was to do. Marisa added this to the long list of other things she had to worry about. Somewhere quiet and out of everybody’s way must, she thought, be the right move.