Day 15

Chapter Four: The photo bedside the bed
Everybody laughed. Well, most of the audience did. You couldn’t please everybody all of the time. They could be a tough crowd, these friends. A couple people were heckling for a third story, but it was getting late, and my thoughts always drifted elsewhere around this time. Real life always creeps back in, whatever the distraction. It was time for me to leave.
I made my good nights and farewells, complicated by the time zones meaning it was early morning to some of those present.
I returned home to my little two-bedroom house on the outskirts of town. The house was cold and empty as always. Uninviting. I spent as little time there as I could, dividing my time between work at the library and the chatroom. It wasn’t anything to do with the house as such, just the emptiness. There wasn’t anyone else in my life, not anymore.
I crept up to the bedroom, undressed and climbed into bed. I automatically fumbled in the bedside table for the sleeping pills. It was either that or open a bottle of wine. The latter was never a good idea, even if it did help me to sleep. I swallowed the pills with a mouthful of water. They would take a while to work.
Each night I tried to avoid looking at the picture on the bedside table. Why kept her picture there after ten years I don’t know. I couldn’t bring myself to put it away, let alone get rid of it completely.
Tonight was slightly different. Perhaps it was the warmth of my friends finally getting through to me. Perhaps after al this time the rest of my scars had finally begun to heal.
Tonight when I looked at the smiling face next to mine in the wedding photo and didn’t want to kill myself.
Slowly, sleep claimed me.

“So how did you meet Archie for the first time,” Jen asked. It was the following evening, and I was back in the chatroom. The room hadn’t changed. It never did. however tonight there was only three of us there. Jen, the Mathematics undergraduate student from Winnipeg and Melinda, a German radiographer. I considered the question. I had been asked it numerous times, ever since the first story of Archie was retold. Until now, I had never felt able to tell how we had first met. Not because of a fear people would not believe me, but because of the memories it would bring back.
Last night had been a turning point, however. something was different, something had changed. Perhaps Fate really did have a hand in events sometimes. I made a choice.
“It was a long time ago, “I said.