ically towards the hall, guilty as teenagers caught mak

er and closed his jeans. He paused a moment, looking down at her, his eyes smouldering. “You look f-king s

ear and skirt in rags, feeling exposed and vulnerable, and sluttish. Owen, fully dressed and looking nothing like he had just f-ked her stupid on the

moment,” she told

unsettled, and took the pizzas down to the kitchen. She went into the master bedroom, grabbing clothing from t

on’t get your hopes up,” she told her. “Even were he to change his mind about breaking off the relationship, he

llery of their past hap

piece of pizza in one hand, and leaning back agains

he bench top, facing him, searching his ey

edness made her uneasy, crushed her burgeoning hope. “Do we have to put a label on what is between us, Emily? I know

hought, in a way that implied that the door was no longer closed between them. “I don’t kn

too, Em,” he

gine my life

down the piece of pizza and reac

- he was using the same soaps, the same deodorant, the same aftershave as he had always used - but most of all, he was still Owen, the man she h

I think about that life, without you in it, I can’t see it. I want you there to celebrate when we have our first concert, when my so

e in them,”

s, and the love I feel for you, aren’t the same thing, and I want to experience the sort of love I wr

ed her heart. “I am not in love with you.” It was so final. So devastatingly brutal. She clung to him as if physical pro

aid in despair. “I

ack. “I am sorry. I really don’t want to

wanted to find someone? Could she be a friend, and watch him move on to a new relationship? “I am not

f me, to want the freedom to look for what I think I am missing, but I to want to keep you to myself too

n’t know what

in silence, ho

realise how I would feel about it until you put those boxes on

ka

paid leave with my job, for that long. If the ba

nd, sleep with Cordelia or anyone else he wanted to, live the life he dreamed of, knowing that she was waiting in the wings if things did not work out

d from him, and he released her, reaching for the pizza again. “Success. If you succeed at something crazy, everyone is all, wow, I co

ight,” she told h

lied. “Shall we g

pictures of their time together, and ate and drank whilst he chatted about the ba

ought they had been happy, the two of them, working together and building a solid future, a solid foundation, in a

orry,”

the contacts he had been making, and her ap

ying to fill herself up with him, to store the moments with him within herself, som

ess. Then, we were doing gigs for weddings and the like, and that sort of filled the space for me. It has really only been the last couple of years,

re if he would discuss that. “We haven’t kissed properly since we were teenagers, haven’t

reath. And she wondered how he knew if she had been h

asked, not sure she wanted an answer