Sometimes things go to plan. After all the worry about what might go wrong and how to cope with what would happen to her if they did, Sarah had just walked through the door and started a new life. All that planning and all that worrying, and yet it had been as easy as walking through a door. Maybe without all of the planning and worrying she might have not felt capable of walking through that door. She didn’t know.

Sarah was not what you might call an attractive girl. She had been overweight for much of her life, not through any glandular disorder or other hocus pocus medically diagnosed malarkey. Sarah simply ate rubbish. She loved takeaway food. The unhealthier the better. Of course, this made you fat. It made your skin greasy. It gave you spots, chins, sweat patches and embarrassing smells. In short, the food wasn’t making her life any easier, yet she always felt better when she ate it, and couldn’t countenance eating anything else.

On the other side of the door, though, Sarah knew that everything she’d done in the past wasn’t going to matter anymore. She was on her first date – with a man. This man had, apparently, loved her for years, and she hadn’t realised. He had plucked up the courage to ask her out, and she had plucked up the courage to say yes. Now she was at a sea life centre, looking round the foyer for the figure that represented the start of something new.

She spotted him and he waved. In the distance, some children, celebrating a birthday party in the café, cheered.