Short stories written by Cecelia Ahern

The End

Let me tell you what this story is about before I get into the finer details, that way you can decide whether you want to read it or not. Let this first page be like my synopsis. First of all let me tell you what this story is not , this is not an "and they all lived happily ever after" story, it's not about life-long friendships, the importance of female relationships, there are no scenes of ladies whispering and sharing stories over cups of coffee and plates of cream cakes they swore to themselves and their weekly weight watchers class they wouldn't eat. Drunken giggles over cocktails do nothing to dry the tears or save the day in this story.

What if I told you that this story won't warm the cockles of your heart, it won't give you hope or cause you to blame escaping tears on the sun cream as you lie by the pool reading this? What if I told you that the girl doesn't get the guy in the end?

Knowing exactly how it ends, do you still want to read on? Well it's not like we don't venture into things without knowing the end, is it? We watch Colombo knowing his misguided representation of himself as a foolish old man will help him solve the case, we know Rene Zellweger decides that she will be the one to go with Tom Cruise and the fish in Jerry Maguire every single time we watch it, Tom Hanks always sees Meg Ryan at the end of Sleepless in Seattle, James Bond always gets the girl, in Eastenders every once happy marriage will end in death, destruction or despair, we read books knowing that the character will blatantly and predictably fall in love with the guy as soon as his name is first mentioned.but we still watch them and read them. There's no twist in my story, I genuinely mean it when I say it, I do not live happily ever after with the love of my life or anyone else for that matter.

It was my counsellor's idea for me to write this story. "Try to keep an air of positiveness," she kept telling me, "the idea for this is to enable you to see the hopefulness of your situation." Well, this is my fifth draft and I've yet to have been enlightened. "End it on a happy note," she kept saying as her forehead wrinkled in concern while she read and reread my attempts. Well this is my last attempt, if she doesn't like it she knows what she can do with it. I hate writing; it bores me, but these days it passes the time. I'm taking her advice though; I'm ending this story on a happy note. I'm ending it at the beginning.

I'll tell you, just as I told her that my reason for doing so is because it's always the beginnings that are the best.