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The Dark Side Of Being Single That No One Ever Talks About
Something that casts a shadow over the convenience of freedom
I’m listening out for the sirens, but all I hear is panting on the line.
“Are you there? Help is on the way,” I say. She groans. Shuffles. Her laboured breathing is triggered by the pain. I push down the handle again, giving the door a nudge — it resists.
I know this feeling, this raw vulnerability, and it floods my mind with memories from all those years ago. The night, chest pain woke me up, and my arms tingled. I panicked and reached out for my phone to dial 999. “It feels like a heart attack,” I gasped to the emergency operator as nausea took over my body. Her voice soothed me. She stayed with me on the line while I retched in the bathroom as quietly as I could so as not to wake my son, sleeping in his room.
“Help is on the way,” she said — those same words, the words that meant the world to me then. They meant I wasn’t alone. They meant, just this time, maybe someone — even if only through the ether — was holding my hand.
Relief washed over me as the emergency services flooded my house —my personal space, which I had come to appreciate and protect with every cell of my being.