‘Gosh, I hadn’t seen the time.’ I look down at my wrist, though I haven’t worn a watch for many, many years.

Looking at the clock on the wall, I can see that it’s only seven thirty. How we have only been on this date for forty-five minutes I don’t know. It’s earlier than even I think is an acceptable time to leave, but my cheers quota for the year has been used up and I can’t take it any more. I have to leave before I hit him. Or cry.

‘Sorry, but I really should go.’

I can see in his face that he doesn’t quite believe me.

‘Well –’ he’s going to be polite, and I instantly feel so guilty that he’s clearly a genuinely nice person, whereas I am disillusioned and tired – ‘this has been great. I would cheers, but it seems odd to cheers with an empty glass!’

‘I guess it does!’ I manage one last smile, possibly the only genuine one of the evening as I can sense freedom is near. I reach for my bag and start to stand.

‘But we could do it anyway!’ He smiles up at me, face full of innocence. ‘Cheers!’

And fuck me, but I sit back down and lift my glass one last time.

CHAPTER 4

I frequently wonder how long it would take my co-workers to notice if I stopped showing up to work. I find it so odd that five days a week I go into an office, wear (increasingly less) office-friendly clothes and exhaust myself trying to seem busy.

I wasn’t always this way. I used to care a lot about my job – it was quite exciting to work for a start-up company doomed for greatness and spearheaded by a fearless, hard-working female leader, my inspirational boss, Mansi. But now I despair when I look at our plans for getting more and more time-poor and money-rich people interested in personalized vitamin regimes that attempt to improve your wellbeing. Especially when I’ve found that being less and less interested in them myself has actually improved my wellbeing.

Today’s task, which, true to my word, did briefly take me out of the office to pick up some bookends, has been to rearrange my boss’s books according to the year of publication. Of course, as soon as she saw the result, she decided colour was a better way to organize them.

So I’ve chosen to take myself off to the disabled loo for a pitiful cry at the stupidity I feel at being upset by this unsurprising, but still quite humiliating, event.

Luckily this isn’t my first rodeo, and, as any practised weeper knows, you should always take your phone with you, so when you’re done crying you can flip through your required reading and carry out your personal admin, giving your eyes and face some time to calm down.

Today the majority of my personal admin is related to my alternative career as owner and creator of CARDiology. I set it up a couple of years ago on a bit of a whim, but it has since become an outlet for my terrible sense of humour. I really had no idea people could be so interested in high-quality, screen-printed cards with puns on them. Calling it a business is slightly optimistic, but who knows, maybe one day.