Looking back, there were warning signs. Flickers of who she was hiding, what they were hiding. I just didn’t want to see. Maybe I didn’t want the fantasy world I’d created to disappear. Maybe I wanted to keep believing their love story was perfect, would be my comfortable company for my final years. Maybe I hoped it would remind me of my own early love story, of that swooning feeling, of those first-kiss moments. Maybe I just missed him, and I was soothing that pain by watching them.
Whatever it was, I know this – things are changing now.
They’re changing.
They’re breaking.
I think it started as tiny cracks, almost unnoticeable signals of them coming undone. The angry gesture on the front porch over some argument I couldn’t hear, smoothed by a kiss on the cheek and what looked like an apology. Abandoned dinner one night in the kitchen, a screaming match ensuing as she stormed out … followed by a sweet, tender embrace at breakfast the next morning.
I thought they were running their course, fighting like couples do. I thought maybe the honeymoon years were just wearing off because we all know they do wear off.
I thought they were okay. Maybe they thought that too.
But as the weeks go on, I realise something I hadn’t before.
Something’s not right. Something’s not right at all. In fact, something’s so grotesquely wrong and hideously tainted, I don’t know if there will be any turning back.
Things haven’t been right for a while now, I’m starting to realise. Behind that bubbly smile, that sunshine yellow, she’s not perfect. Not even close.
Why with all bright stories is there a monster, unseen, that festers beneath the boiling surface?
As the weather gets colder, the frost settling in, it’s clear that maybe I didn’t really know my neighbour from 312 Bristol Lane at all.