The teacups clattered as Sophie slammed her palm onto the café table. “Emma, have you absolutely lost the plot?” Her voice was sharp with disbelief. “He treats you like a doormat! Today you’re needed, tomorrow you’re not, the next day he whistles again!”
“Sophie, you don’t understand,” Emma sighed, stirring sugar into her coffee, a weariness settling deep. “Oliver’s incredibly busy. His business, constant meetings. We meet when he has time.”
“Stuff his business!” Sophie flushed crimson with indignation. “You’re thirty-six, Emma! How long can you be the backup plan?”
Emma winced. Sophie always went for the jugular. And she wasn’t wrong. It was just a truth so jagged, Emma preferred it unsaid.
“What choice do I have?” she whispered, gazing out the rain-streaked window. “London’s full of beauties, Sophie. Me? I’m… ordinary. But I’m convenient. No nagging, no demands, no strops.”
“Good Lord, listen to yourself! *Convenient*!” Sophie seized her hand. “Are you a floor rag? You’ve got a first-class degree, a brilliant job, your own flat! You’re clever, kind, loyal…”
“Just not beautiful,” Emma cut in, a bitter twist to her mouth. “And men choose with their eyes first, you know that.”
Sophie sank back into her chair, shaking her head. Twenty years of friendship, and her friend still couldn’t grasp her own worth. Always since uni – in the shadow of brighter, louder girls, ready to mould herself, please, not get in the way.
“Remember Thomas from uni?” Emma asked unexpectedly.
“Vaguely,” Sophie,” Sophie’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I fancied him rotten. Followed him around for three years, gave him my lecture notes, helped with seminars. He barely noticed I existed. Then Chloe Winters appeared…” Emma trailed off. “Well. He started orbiting her instantly.”
“That was a hundred years ago!” Sophie exclaimed, throwing her hands up.
“Feels like yesterday to me,” Emma offered a sad smile. “I learned life’s golden rule then: the beautiful get everything handed to them. The rest of us? We have to be convenient. Useful.”
“Em, but look at them! Thomas became a complete washout! Alcoholic, no prospects! And your stunning Chloe? Three marriages, three divorces. Where are they now, Emma? Where are *you*?”
“They live,” Emma murmured. “I adapt.”
Emma’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen, instantly alert. “Ollie? Yes, I’m free. Of course I’ll come. In an hour? Brilliant. I’ll be ready.” Her face transformed – a childish eagerness replacing the fatigue.
Sophie watched in horrified silence as her friend gathered her bag. “Emma, don’t,” she whispered urgently. “Say you’re busy.”
“I can’t,” Emma insisted, already standing. “He’s free for two hours between meetings. It’s been ages.”
“You saw him five days ago!”
“Ages,” Emma repeated stubbornly.
Sophie stayed, watching Emma’s figure recede down the drizzle-slicked street. What happened to her? When did this smart, capable woman become an appendage to someone else’s life?
It hadn’t always been this way. At uni, Emma, while never the beauty, was the life and soul. Witty, organising weekends away, helping everyone with their assignments. The lads adored her – not romantically, but as ‘one of the boys’. ‘Em-bro’, they called her, and she’d been proud.
After uni, Emma excelled as an economist. Promotion followed promotion. She bought her flat, her car. Her parents were thrilled – their daughter had made it. Only her love life was a desert.
The first serious boyfriend came at twenty-eight. Ben, a reliable colleague. Emma thought she’d found it – a man who valued her character, not her face. They dated for two years. Emma started dreaming of wedding dresses. Then Ben met Emily, a gorgeous new graduate.
“See, Emma,” he’d stumbled, picking words painfully, “you’re fantastic, but with Emily… I feel something else. Real fire, real… lift.”
“And with me? It’s comfortable?” Emma had asked flatly. “Convenient?”
“Well… yes,” he admitted. “Too comfortable.”
That’s when Emma truly understood: beauty ignited passion; convenience bred habit. And habit could become boredom in an instant.
After Ben, came several more men. Always the same script. They came into her orbit when wounded – after a divorce, a sacking, illness. Emma healed them, nurtured them, held them steady. Then, once recovered, some beauty inevitably swept them away.
“Emma, you get it,” the last one explained. “You’re great, but… no spark. You feel me?”
Felt it? Oh, she felt it.
Then came Oliver. A successful divorcé businessman with a teenage daughter, Chloe. They met randomly – Emma helped untangle a messy tax return when his accountant quit.
“Cheers for saving my skin,” Oliver said gratefully. “You’re a total pro. And a really good person.”
*Good person*. Emma internally echoed the phrase. Again. Not a woman. Not desirable. A *good, useful, convenient* person.
But when Oliver asked to meet again, not for work, Emma’s heart skipped. Maybe *this* one would finally see her as a woman?
That first date seemed wonderful. Oliver was engaging, attentive. Talked expansively about his business expansion plans, even confided about fraught relations with Chloe. “She blames me for the divorce,” he confessed. “Thinks I gave up. Her Mum… stunning, was a model. But the temper? God, unbearable!”
Listening, Emma dared hope: *He gets it now. Beauty isn’t everything. Maybe he’ll value substance?*
Initially, it seemed so. Daily calls. Dates at the theatre, cosy bistros. Flowers. Compliments. Though the compliments felt… odd:
“You’re so restful, Em. Dead easy to be with.”
“You just *get* me. Never ask for the moon.”
“Thank God for women who don’t chuck a meltdown over every little thing.”
Emma basked in these words, blind to what they lacked: passion, desire, declarations of being cherished. Instead, they screamed ‘convenience’.
Gradually, a rhythm emerged. Oliver called when meetings allowed. He visited when Chloe was with her mother. Their time was quiet – takeaways, box sets, work chit-chat.
“Will I meet your mates?” Emma ventured once.
“Why rush it?” Oliver deflected. “We’re sweet as we are. Why complicate things?”
*Complicated*. That’s how he saw integrating her into his world. It took a chance encounter to make her understand. Spotting Oliver in a West End department store, hand-in-hand with a striking brunette. Laughing, animated, radiating a focused, enamoured energy Emma had never witnessed from him. Hidden behind a perfume counter display, she watched him tenderly assist her choose a fragrance. Gallant. Besotted. A far cry from the relaxed, care-receiving man she knew.
That evening, he rang as usual: “Em, how’s tricks? Mind if I pop round? Shattered. Just need some peace.”
Peace. After passion – peace. After spectacle – the mundane. After a beauty – convenient Emma.
“Course, come over,” she’
She finally understood that her worth wasn’t found in fitting neatly into someone else’s broken spaces, but in building her own radiant world from the ground up.
