I am 28, and for as long as I can remember, I have always been ‘that big girl.’ Not the most noticeable in photographs, not the one who gets compliments first. Over time, I learned to survive in my own way: to be comfortable, warm, funny. The one who is loved for her reliability — because ‘she is easy to be with.’
Sayer and I lived together for almost three years. I truly believed that he loved me completely, and not just some beautiful image in his head. It seemed to me that we had something real: shared plans, habits, late-night conversations, and that calm feeling of ‘we’re a team.’
And then — six months ago — everything fell apart. I found out that he was cheating on me. And not with just anyone, but with my best friend Maren. It wasn’t a rumour or a guess: I had messages, photos — the kind of things that make you feel cold inside and give you a lump in your throat.
I saw the evidence with my own eyes.
I realised that two people close to me had betrayed me.
And for the first time, I felt how quickly trust can turn into emptiness.
When I talked to Sayre about it, he didn’t make a scene or try to ‘fix’ things. No tears, no normal apologies — just cold bluntness. He said that Maren was ‘different.’ Then he added a phrase that I remember word for word: she is slim, she is beautiful, and that is ‘important.’
And then he said something that felt like a crack inside me: that I was a good person, but I ‘didn’t take care of myself,’ and he “deserved” someone who was ‘right’ for him.
Sometimes the most painful thing is not the breakup itself, but how people try to measure you by their standards and call it ‘the truth.’
Maren disappeared from my life instantly: she blocked me everywhere, as if I were not a friend, not a person, but an inconvenient obstacle. And they… they didn’t wait. The engagement happened quickly, as if they needed to close the door as soon as possible and not look back.
I hit rock bottom. Not in the sense of a movie drama, but for real: I woke up with a heavy head, ate automatically, stared at one spot for hours and thought that everything valuable in me turned out to be useless to anyone.
And yet, one day, a simple thought came to me: I can’t go on living with this feeling of powerlessness. Not for revenge, not to prove anything to anyone, but to pull myself out of it.
- At first, it was just regular walks.
- Then they turned into jogs.
- Then — weight training.
I cried in the gym toilet. I binged on food. I wanted to quit every week. But I kept going — stubbornly, quietly, without fanfare. Not because it became easy, but because otherwise it would have been even harder.
And gradually, my body responded. In six months, I changed a lot on the outside, but more importantly, on the inside. My confidence didn’t come back all at once, but in small pieces: in the way I straightened my shoulders, the way I looked at my reflection, the way I stopped apologising for my presence.
Today is their wedding day.
Of course, I wasn’t invited. And I decided in advance to spend the day at home: turn off the sound on my phone, make some tea, put on a film and just wait it out — like bad weather.
Sometimes the most mature choice is not to go where you were once hurt, but to stay on your own side instead.
But in the afternoon, the phone rang.
The number was unfamiliar.
I almost didn’t pick up — my hand reached for the ‘hang up’ button. But something inside me tightened, and I answered.
The woman’s voice sounded tense, as if she were speaking on the run and trying not to break down:
‘Is this Larkin?’
I said yes.
There was a pause for a second, and then she seemed to swallow hard:
“This is Sayer’s mother. Listen to me… Larkin, you need to come. Urgently. You won’t believe what happened.
I sat there with the phone to my ear, feeling the silence in the flat become too loud. Dozens of possibilities flashed through my mind, from an awkward mistake to some kind of family panic. And another possibility: that they were trying to drag me back into a story where I didn’t belong.
But one thing I understood for sure: this call was not about a wedding or a wedding dress. It was about how the past sometimes comes back suddenly, and you have to decide who you are now — a person who will swallow someone else’s pain again, or a person who knows how to defend themselves.
No matter how this story unfolds, over the past six months I have already done the most important thing: I have stopped being someone’s ‘convenient girl’ and have become myself again. And if the past knocks on the door, now I only open it on my own terms.
