Chapter 3

Emily put the notepad back as she had found it, the beat of her heart painful against her ribs, seeming to pound in her throat, and her ears filled with a rush of white noise. On automatic pilot she made her way back through the house, erasing any sign that she had been there, and turning out the lights, until she stood on the front porch, locking the door, much as Owen had done over an hour before. She made her way back to her house - the tears dry now as dread began to set in. Was Megan right?

The neighbour across the road was at his letter box. She was certain that he had checked his mail three times already, and Mrs Essen next door was watering very late, standing on her driveway with her hose pointed away from Emily’s house, her back to her, as if determinedly not watching. Snooping, she thought with embarrassed anger. They had obviously seen Owen’s move during the day. She and Owen had become the street’s entertainment, as good as any soap opera, she thought angrily as she let herself into her house.

Owen’s face laughed at her from the pictures on the wall as she entered, his handsome features so well known, but also a mystery now. She felt a flash of anger towards him. How could he do this? To her, to them? Without warning and without even really discussing his reasons for doing it with her?

She would not sit up waiting for him. She would not.

But she joined her cold pot of tea in the lounge room and sat on the couch, clutching a pillow to her chest, watching as the room slipped into full darkness for headlights, until she eventually fell asleep. She dreamed that she chased Owen through the darkness, screaming out his name, and she could not catch him, and he would not stop to answer her cries.

Her phone vibrating woke her. Blearily she sat up in the darkness, wiping drool off her cheek and felt blindly for the phone. Owen’s name illuminated the screen. A message.

“Something amazing happened tonight,” it read. “Are you up?”

It was an echo of their teen years, she thought. They were back to being neighbours and sneaking over to each other’s house after midnight to share secrets, or just to grope. “Yes,” she replied, her heart caught between hope and despair.

He had been waiting for her reply, as it was not even a minute later that he knocked. He had shadows under his eyes and carried with him the smell of alcohol and smoke. His broad shoulders stretched an unfamiliar leather jacket that was either meant to be really form fitting or was a little small for him. He was, she thought, beautiful, with his dark hair falling into his eyes and his stubble shadowing his jaw. And, somehow, unattainable and untouchable. The chasm of his actions of the day yawning between them.

“That was… weird,” he said shoving his hands into his pocket and hunching his shoulders uncomfortably. “Knocking, I mean. I woke you,” he added, apologetic taking in her dishevelment. “I am sorry.”

“It is alright. Do you want a tea?” She turned feeling robotic and returned to the lounge room to collect the cold teapot from the coffee table. She carried the cold pot heavy with the undrunk liquid down the hallway, through the gallery of their laughing faces, to the kitchen.

“Yeah, okay,” he closed the door behind him and followed. “This is… difficult. Em, I am sorry.”

“What is this, Owen?” She emptied the pot into the sink and left it there. She filled the kettle. Keep it together, Emily, she told herself as she set two mugs onto the counter and dropped teabags and sugar into them. “I don’t understand. Yesterday we were planning on laying the floating floors and discussing wedding plans, and today I get back from wedding dress shopping for you to tell me, you don’t want to get married, have moved into the house next door, and don’t want to see me for a few days.”

“I know,” he sighed heavily, leaning his hip against the kitchen bench. It was odd, she thought, how she had seen him do that exact thing hundreds of times, and yet, in the space of the day, he now did it awkwardly, not at home within the house that had, that morning, he had lived in. “It is not going to be easy. I had to do it, though, Em. It has been in my head for weeks now, months even in a way, and I had to just do it, or I knew I would regret it.”

“What have you done, exactly?” She was starting to feel the burn of anger again that the grogginess of sleep and the shock of his message was wearing away. “What exactly is this, Owen? Do you want to put the marriage off? Do you not want to get married at all? Or are we over? I am just… confused.”

“Em,” he stepped forward and put his arms around her. She clung, the leather jacket against her palms unfamiliar, but the leanly muscled body beneath it, the scent of the man, the feel of him against her, still the same. She buried her face into his chest and breathed him in as she cried out the despair of the day, her frustration, her loss, and her anger. He held her until her grief wore down into stillness and then pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I am sorry, Em. So sorry.”

“I feel as if my entire life I have been burying this other person beneath being…” he sighed. “What you wanted me to be. With the wedding coming up, I realised that I had one chance to do the things I wanted to do, and if I didn’t, I would be locked into this life I didn’t want to live.”

“You don’t want our life?” She was appalled, pushing back against his chest, against his arms around her so that she could look up into his face. “Owen, we made these decisions together, built this life together.”

“I know,” he pulled her back against him and pressed his face into her hair, his arms around her as if in comfort but truly, she thought, because he did not want to look at her as he made his confessions. “I know we did, and at the time they were what I thought I should do. The sensible thing to do. But I wanted… wildness, Em. I wanted to pursue music, to go to parties and get wasted, to spend hours with other people who share my passion talking about lyrics and smoking and drinking, and not caring about work in the morning, or whether lawns need to be mowed, or bills paid…”

“Is that what you did tonight?” She could smell the smoke on his clothing. Owen did not smoke - they had never smoked. But he had been somewhere with smokers. Not just cigarettes, too, she thought, inhaling before leaning back to peer into his eyes. They did not look red. “Whose jacket is this?”

“Ah, I swapped it, with James…” He chuckled a little at the memory, his cheeks colouring. “James is in the band, a really good band, Em… and he took a fancy to my jacket… Anyway, they are… you know, it really looks like they are going to make something of themselves, Em. And they want me to join them. They like my music and want me to play guitar and sing.”

“You are joining a band?” She was trying to make sense of what he was saying, trying to line it up with his decision to end their engagement and move out, trying to fit the pieces together of a puzzle she didn’t know the picture of.

“Yes,” he laughed, the sound light-hearted and free. A laugh she had not heard, she realised, in some time. “Yes, I am joining a band. Writing their music and playing guitar for them.”

“Okay.” She did not understand why that had led to him wanting to end their engagement and move into the house next door. “Owen… I am not going to stop you from joining a band if you want to. It is good to have hobbies. If you need more time, we can hire someone to finish the renovations…”