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Approaching the front door to Rosie’s terrace I had felt more exhausted than I ever thought possible. Emotionally, physically, mentally - every inch of me was numb. I zombie through the front door, tossing my keys on the entrance table at the bottom of the stairs and not even having the energy to go up to my haven, I head for the sofa in the living room. I fall hard onto the plush suede face down. I don’t move. Knowing Rosie is probably at work, I decide to rest here for awhile to avoid sinking in my own destructive thoughts. I close my eyes and welcome the silent darkness.

Still engulfed by obscurity, the sounds around me become evident. I open my eyes as the noise becomes too loud to ignore any longer. I raise my hands up to my ears trying to block out this clatter they supposedly call music and don’t care who thinks I am uncool for doing so. I look straight on to see another sofa opposite me. Low leather draped with beautiful looking women all dressed quite sexily. I swallow heavily at how perfect they appear considering my puffy red eyes and just woken up hair would be in comparison. My eyes focus on a man sitting in the middle of the good looking ladies seated comfortably around him. Those familiar boots with the laces not done up all the way and skinny wash jeans poking out from beneath his toned thighs. My eyes rise to the man’s face but he has his head turned to the side, so I am unable make out his features clearly. I squint, hoping to determine the identity of this man but to no prevail. The woman sitting directly next to him is wearing a lace figure hugging dress, revealing her sizeable cleavage bulging out the top. She is bent right over him but her face too, is blurred or something and I can’t make her out. Continuing my strained glare I search harder. Suddenly the women draped all over him, looks directly at me.... I gasp in shock.

It’s Rosie!

What’s Rosie doing here?

Before I call out to her the mystery man with the familiar footwear turns to face me and before I can fathom anything further, I throw up on the worn floorboards. The clothes, the body language doesn’t match the man’s face. I’m confused. I look harder at this man staring back me whilst wiping the vile liquid off my chin. Penetrating those large eyes into mine stabbing the wound deeper in my chest. The stubble on his face, so sexy, and kept the way I used to like it... the way I still like it.

“Aargh!”

I let out a brief scream. I sit up immediately. My heart beating rapidly, pounding out of my chest and tiny drops of sweat resting on my forehead and between my breasts. I focus my eyes on my immediate surroundings and see I am still in Rosie’s living room on her sofa; a panting hot mess, and
not
in a good way.

A dream?

I rub my face a few times trying to disperse how real it felt. Being back there at the club where it all unexpectedly unfolded before me. The scene that unravelled what I thought might be me finally moving forward from this devastation. How wrong I was. My two screwed up situations, the original with Evan and the most recent with Jay, were meshing incoherently together in my nightmare.

I must be so mentally fucked up!

I shake my head and feel the slight rumble of a headache beginning. I stagger to my feet and sliding one foot in front of the other make my way to the kitchen. Carefully popping two tablets out of the packet I discard the remaining contents on the bench and reach for a half empty glass of water just over by the sink. I turn my eyes over to the wall clock and see that Rosie should be home from work soon. I sigh heavily and roll my eyes. I could only imagine how much probing she will do when she interrogates me about LA. She could make the questions of a police officer seem like a piece of cake to handle. The mere thought sends an ill feeling in my gut and instead of rehashing it all now in preparation for her questioning, I decide that once will be more than enough. I will just wing it when she gets home. Besides, I’m too drained to want to think anything at all. In a trance I catch a glimpse of my phone sitting on the paper Mache glass table. I hesitate as my heart stops beating while I contemplate reaching for it.

I wonder if he has tried to call me?

Do I want to know?

No.

Do I?

I pause at first, but my body fails me anytime Jay is even thought about. Before I realise I have the phone in my trembling hands. I take a breath and swipe open the menu screen.

3 missed calls.

1 text message
.

I can’t help but feel a tad relieved to see it’s his number but also a lot concerned.

Do I really want to read what he has to say?

Do I?

I stare at the screen for minutes, deliberating on whether I should in fact even bother seeing what he had to say. But at the end of the day and probably due to my feelings for him, I can’t help it. I just...
can’t.

Jay:
U mean something. Everything.

I dont want to lose u before we have even begun

I stare blankly at it reading the words over and over again. I shake my head further confused, not knowing how to react at all.

How can he say this after what happened? Where he was and what he was doing!

I just don’t get it....

I don’t get it!

I don’t understand anything.

Thoughts raid my brain with more puzzles and confusion. It’s like my life has turned into a huge soap opera that was a minefield of uncertainty and betrayal. I toss my phone angrily onto the bench carelessly, which as a result knocks a pile of the stacked papers which were sitting precariously on the edge onto the timber floor - scattering them everywhere.

Great!

I close my eyes and rub my forehead hard, just wanting this day to be over already. I bend down to the floor, kneeling on the uncomfortable chilly timber and start gathering the mess into an unkempt pile. Stray tears fall automatically from my swollen eyes forming large circular dots on the papers in my shaky palms.

Bills, notes, shopping lists...

Papers that meant nothing and should probably be thrown out. Instead of putting it on the already crowded table with the rest of the others, I fumble my hands to the side drawer of the cupboard and try to pull it open. It seems to be jammed. I place the papers in a stack on the table, switch on the lampshade and using both free hands try to pull the drawer open. It finally screeches ajar, like it hadn’t been opened for quite some time and I glance down at its contents. More useless papers, business cards and other bills; however a pale yellow note slightly sticking out from beneath the pile strikes my attention. The colour of the paper was familiar somehow which in my numb state saw me drawn to it. As I slowly take it out from underneath other bits and pieces, I hold my breath. The handwritten scrawled words instantly bring a tsunami of water to my already engorged eyes. The trembling of my hand quakes furiously and I am unable to breathe.

The note I had found on holiday while Evan was sleeping with words of his undying love scribbled in his handwriting, are staring at me loud and clear.

"Dearest Penny...

I have loved you from the moment I met you. I want to be the man you want me to be, and want to spend my life proving to you that I can be that man! I realise I have made mistakes, but please let me spend my life making it up to you. I cannot express how happy you would make me if you would agree to be my one and only until death parts us. You and me, forever.

You will always have my heart, so let me have yours to protect and love.

- Evan "

The note, now soggy and out of focus as the tears that stream urgently down my cheeks are caught on its umbrella.

How?!

Why?!

Where did it come from?

I had never received the note from Evan as his confession – the dreaded admission on the day that changed my entire life, was delivered before the proposal was.

How did it get here?

My thoughts immediately race through the events from that night. All of it. But I was right. I never received the note from him. I had found it earlier at the hotel and knew he was going to ask me; my tears of joy and elation the day I spied this amongst his Calvin Klein’s. But his declaration of guilt the next day changed all of that. He never actually got the chance to give this to me.

And now it’s staring at me in the face?

It’s in my hand?

How?

"Penny, you’re home early. How was your trip? Tell me everything!" Rosie’s chirpy voice beams from across the room as she enters and I can’t do anything but stare at the wet crumpled paper in my sticky hands.

"What are you doing? Are you okay? Penny?" she continues, while I remain shocked and frozen. My eyes never switching their focus from the note in my trembling palm.

"Work was a nightmare today."

She suddenly stops what she’s doing as she realises I haven’t moved since she entered.

"Penny...?"

As I start to really hear her voice and with my recent dream still so fresh in mind, I begin to think of the last few months. Rosie being so over-attentive, over-guilty the whole time I was in mourning over Evan. Her graciously taking care of me, her culpable looks, her sadness... all of it.

Am I going crazy?

I don’t say anything but turn to face her, still holding the handwritten note in my hand. A note I had told her about countless times over the past few months as I recounted the event that lead to our ultimate demise. As soon as I have turned to face her completely, her happy face glances at my hand and straight away her expression alters. She looks stunned. She looks shocked. I gulp. She looks
guilty
. Her eyes are instantly glassy and she begins shaking her head furiously.

"D-do you know what this is Rose?" I ask her, my voice trembling intensely.

She doesn’t answer.

"Rose! D-do you know what this is? I repeat, my voice rising with the fear. She starts shaking her head, but she isn’t saying no. She is saying something else. Maybe an apology? A regret? Something else...

"How did it get here?" I press again coldly.

"Penelope... I...." Her head is still shaking. Her eyes more watery. It’s now obvious that there is something she does feel guilty about, and it isn’t about me. I taste the salty water on my lips as I swallow nervously.

"What? What Rose? How did you get this?"

"I’m so sorry Penny," she manages as her voice quivers furiously.

I take a deep breath."Sorry for what Rose?"

"It wasn’t meant to happen. None of it was meant to happen..." she mutters, as her tears stream down her cheeks. I stand motionless. Wanting, needing her words to come out of her mouth for confirmation, certainty and clarity; although I was scared to death of what could follow.

"What wasn't meant to?" I whisper and hold my breath.

"Penny. You have to understand, it stopped as soon as it had happened. There was alcohol. I was emotional. I was so alone. We realised it was the wrong thing and that was it. Please you have to understand. You have to understand. Please understand..."

Her words aren’t articulate like usual and her sobs are meshing the words into the air. She’s broken and on repeat.

"What stopped Rose?"

I am suspended tentatively in the air, while I nervously wait to hear the inevitable conclusion come out of her mouth. Deathly silence, except for her relentless sobs and erratic breathing lies between us, until finally she takes a rigid breath to speak.

"Evan and I... we…. we……”

I am numb. The flow of tears take free reign over my face.

I am stunned.

Devastated.

“You…? You slept with him.”

I gasp. Hoping I was not right in my words. But I knew. I knew deep down that this was just about to happen.

"Penny, it only happened once and straight afterwards... it was a mistake! We knew it was wrong. He loves you so much!" Rosie is pleading with me, allowing the shame she has kept from me this whole time free into the open. I stare blank, silent, tears seeming to have stopped intermittently. The ducts are probably empty. My body is still frozen. My breathing has stopped. I can’t move. This can't be happening.

"Penny. Please say something. Please," she bawls hysterically.

I continue to blink at her blankly.

“Penny!” she screams, trying to get me to snap out of my zombie-like state. The few steps she starts taking towards me immediately changes the stagnant air surrounding me. The reality of where I am and what has unfolded before me slaps me harshly across the face - waking me from my stupor. Releasing my tears once again, I stumble backwards in defence to stay a safe distance from her, halting her immediately.

"How did you get this?" is all I manage, still holding Evan's heartfelt note. She wipes her face with her fingertips smudging mascara all over her face. Her fly like eyes are so bloodshot and puffy that it conflicts with my insides. Seeing her so distraught and such a mess, yet having her make such a confession to me after all this time. My heart cries out forcefully, abruptly tearing open the wound to its former glory, letting it bleed out relentlessly.