**Holding On Till Friday**
On Wednesday morning, Edward couldn’t get out of bed for the first time in three years. Not because he was ill, not because of traffic, not because he’d forgotten to set his alarm. Something inside him had snapped. He sat on the edge of the mattress in his old, frayed dressing gown—the one Emily had given him years ago with a smile—and stared numbly at his feet, as if the answer to why he should carry on might lie in those motionless toes. He found nothing.
The clock read 8:17. His phone blinked with notifications—”meeting in 40 minutes,” “project deadline,” “pay broadband bill”—all of it repulsive now, when just yesterday it had been routine. He silenced the screen. From the kitchen, the familiar hiss of the kettle echoed, as if the house was still pretending things were normal. But Edward didn’t pour the water. He stood, walked to the window, flung it open, inhaled the crisp London air, then lit a cigarette—even though he’d quit nearly two years ago. His hands shook. And then—he cried. No sobs, no gasps. Just silent tears. The kind that fall when someone has held everything in too long.
Edward was 39. He worked in IT, owned a flat in a commuter town, took holidays in October, ate on schedule, worked out three times a week. “Successful, stable”—that’s how he’d defined himself, until everything started crumbling. No, not crumbling. Rotting. Slowly, from the inside. Colleagues felt like strangers, even polite conversations felt forced, and every project was just another empty motion on an assembly line. Smiles were hollow, meetings pointless, and every morning began with the same desperate question: *Why am I doing this again?*
Emily—his ex—had once told him flatly, *”You’re like a switched-off telly, Ed. I don’t even know if there’s anything alive in you anymore.”* And then she’d left. No fights, no drama. Just packed her things and vanished. He hadn’t begged. Hadn’t chased. Just stayed behind. Alone. In a flat where every object had been chosen together and now felt like it belonged to someone else.
That same Wednesday, he pulled on his jeans and jacket, left the building, and—without thinking—drove not to the office, but to Hyde Park, the same place he’d played guitar with mates in his youth. He took the day off, blamed a migraine. Bought coffee and sat on a bench by the pond, where sparrows skated on the thin morning ice. He just watched. People. Dogs. Children. For the first time in months, he wasn’t thinking about deadlines or feeling guilty for doing nothing. He was no one. And it wasn’t terrifying. It was freeing.
*”Running away from it all too?”* came a voice beside him.
He turned. A woman. Petite, early forties, chestnut hair in a braid, wearing a coat with a mended pocket. Her voice was soft, like morning mist. Not demanding, not pleading—just there.
*”Suppose so,”* he replied. *”You?”*
*”I run when it’s too much inside. Today’s one of those Wednesdays.”*
Her name was Margaret. She worked at a local library, raised a teenage son, had been divorced for years. And every time it became unbearable, she came here. Just sat. With a book. Or without.
They sat side by side for nearly an hour, exchanging barely a dozen words. Then she stood. *”I’m here Wednesdays and Fridays. If you ever need it—come by.”*
After that, Edward started returning. Sometimes just to feel he existed. Sometimes to hear her read Auden or Larkin aloud. Sometimes just to be silent. But always—to *be*.
Margaret wasn’t the sort for pretense. With her, he didn’t have to be strong. Didn’t have to perform. Didn’t need a *why*. Her presence was like an open window—a place where he could just breathe.
After weeks, he admitted, *”I can feel something inside me again.”*
*”Good,”* she smiled. *”That’s not the end, then. Just a new bend in the road.”*
Six months passed. The job stayed the same. So did Edward—he didn’t magically turn into some cheerful hero. But he began waking up—not to dread, but to curiosity. *What will today bring?* He noticed things in his colleagues he’d ignored before—their exhaustion, their quiet worries. He spoke to his father for longer than three minutes. Dug out his old guitar from the loft. Even wrote Emily a letter—not to ask for anything, just to thank her. And he realised—the hollow feeling was gone.
And then—Friday came. He arrived at Margaret’s with an apple pie in a box. Just because. Because he knew she’d smile. But the door opened, and there she was—pale, tear-streaked, crumpling a letter in her hand. Her son had a tumour. Aggressive. Fast. Cruel. She wasn’t crying—just standing there, knuckles white.
He didn’t leave. He stayed. Held her when she broke. Scoured for specialists, slept on hospital chairs, gripped her hand when she was too tired to breathe. He didn’t say *”it’ll be okay.”* He just said, *”I’m here. We’ll get through it. Together.”*
A year later, her son was recovering. Laughing again. Arguing about politics and Oasis. Margaret wore the same old coat—still with the mended pocket—and laughed with that familiar rasp at the end, the sound Edward now loved most in the world.
As for him? He no longer searched for meaning in Excel sheets. No longer counted the days till the weekend. He just lived. Breathed the mornings. Drank his coffee. And whenever the weight returned, he remembered:
Sometimes, to survive, you just have to hold on till Friday.
Then the next. And the next. Until it gets easier. Until you start living again.
