Page 79 of Unspoken Words
Connor followed moments later and drove us back to my house in silence, and before he’d even had a chance to cut the engine, I opened my door and got out, shutting it behind me.
“ELLIE!”
Pausing only a few steps away from his car, I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath, slowly exhaling before I reopened them and glanced back over my shoulder.
“You’re my best friend,” he pleaded through his open window. “I can’t lose you too.”
“You’ll never lose me, Connor. You just can’t have me, either.”
His shoulders bounced as he sobbed, and it ripped me in two. I’d somehow entered a nightmare I couldn’t find my way out of and, yet, no nightmare could ever be as real as Connor and I were, never as painful and heart-wrenching, never as high or as low. No nightmare could scare me as much as knowing that I was about to walk away from the only man I had ever loved and would ever love as deeply as I did.
“I’m sorry this happened to us,” I said, as I took a step back. “But I can’t stay here in this town and watch you live your life with another woman, the life we were supposed to live together.”
He stopped crying and blinked. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying goodbye because I’m moving to Darwin.”
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-One
Ellie
“Turn it off,” I groaned, rollingover and covering my head with my blanket.
The hideous honking sound of our alarm clock ceased, and comforting arms slid around my waist, gently pulling me against a warm, firm chest, the scent of musk and pine needles familiar and soothing. I settled once again.
“That’s the last time I’m pushing snooze, Elle,” he said, as he peeled the blanket from my face and allowed an unwelcome beam of light to hit my eyes. “You have a plane to catch, remember?”
Hours of lovemaking and reduced sleep had lent dryness to his voice. He sounded sexy, and it made me want to stay in bed all the more.
“I don’t want to go,” I grouched. “I’m happy here, in bed, in the land of sun and … sweat.” I waggled my sleepy eyebrows and wiggled my butt into his groin.
His fingers gently pressed my ribs like the keys on a clarinet, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the ticklish feel. “Stop it.” I turned to face him.
Cocoa-coloured eyes met mine. “Stay then. Don’t go.” They grew darker, like espresso, their rich warmth a constant trigger for craving a cup of hot morning coffee, yet I wasn’t enchanted enough to miss the warning that swirled among his irises when he continued, “I mean, I’m sure you’ll find the same amazing job opportunity here in Darwin—”
I narrowed my eyes and sighed. “Okay okay. I’m getting up.”
Byron kissed my nose, and his once unfamiliar lips alarmed me a whole lot less these days. “I’ll see you in a few weeks. It will go by so quickly you won’t even realise we’ve been apart.”
I pouted.
“Stop pouting.” He threw the blankets off our bed and sprung to his knees. “Come on. I have to drop you at the airport before my first class starts.”
Plastering a faux smile to my face, I climbed out of bed when all I wanted was to climb right back in. Today would be the first time I journeyed back home since I moved away. It was also the first time I chanced facing what I’d left behind, or more so whom.
*
Two hoursinto my five-hourflight from Darwin to Melbourne and I’d done nothing but reflect on the past four years of my life away from my family, and Connor. I’d simply run away, and I wasn’t afraid to admit it. The heart-splintering pain I’d felt after learning Connor and Lilah had slept together and were expecting a baby pierced so deep and without mercy that running to the other side of the country had been my only choice. It meant I could pretend to move on, pretend to start afresh, pretend none of it had ever happened and that I was happy. I could also pretend I didn’t know, deep down, that neither distance nor time could heal an unhealable heart. Nothing could.
Since leaving Melbourne, I’d secured a cute little apartment close to Uni, a loving boyfriend of two years, an amazing suntan I never thought possible due to my pasty-white, freckle-covered skin, and I’d completed a Bachelor of Arts – Popular Music Studies of which I was now postgraduate and working with various local artists to create lyrics for their songs. Life was good. Not perfect. Just … good. But then, I’d experienced enough to know perfection didn’t exist. That the most we could hope for was a pleasant contentment, and if you could find that it was best to stick with it and protect it as best you could.
“Are you finished with that, ma’am?” the flight attendant asked, her Barbie-pink, immaculately manicured nails dangling from her outstretched hand.
“Oh, yes, thank you.” I glanced down at my own nails, unvarnished and practically chewed to the quick before scrambling to pick up my empty food tray.
The lady seated to my right, handed me her tray as well. “Would you mind, dear?” she said. “I can’t reach.”
