*All accounts in this anthology are fictional
I woke up to, what sounded like, the sweet sound of innocent giggles in the distance of the apartment. I felt the emptiness beside me, and then checked the time on the alarm clock, that we never used, that sat on the dresser… 2h30.
I had told Joel multiple times that his late nights were starting to become a bother for me. We never had the opportunity to spend time together and it was causing our relationship to burnout, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. We hadn’t had sex for three months, and the last time we did it was a drunken mess.
He didn’t listen. He still came home at some ungodly hour, and worst of all he was laughing at the front door, not even taking into consideration that even though I worked from home, I still had to get up in three hours. It seemed as though one of us had grown up, and one of us hadn’t. In retrospect, I should have known that I was going to mature faster when he asked that my name be on the lease to our Condo.
I rolled out of bed in a rage. Not even caring that I was sleeping in my cotton “I love you a latte” undies and a thin white t-shirt. If his buddy wanted to watch, go ahead, as long as it made him leave faster. I marched out of the bedroom and down the small set of stairs to our front door.
“Excu…” I didn’t even have time to finish. In front of my eyes was Joel, the person I thought I was spending the rest of my life with, embracing a man, in my home, in the home that we were supposed to be building together.
Joel looked up at me, horror in his eyes, and nothing in mine, my body language flatlined, not a communication of any sort to give him. I turned around silently and walked towards the bedroom, shut the door and put my head on the pillow, and asked myself, ‘What in the hell did I just witness?’ I heard him say my name from distance, “Penelope”, discouragement in his voice, but no other effort, no other sound, and I fell asleep to the silence.
*
I heard the sounds of a steam engine, pushing through the night, then the sound of a small volcano erupting with water, and the water trickling down the sides of the mountain. When I came to, I realized it was my coffee machine, I had set it to start brewing at 5h30, as a motivation to wake up earlier each morning.
It was a beautiful June sunrise; the giant star was trying to peek through the healthy green trees from across the river. I rolled out of bed, with anguish, tiredness and a burden of soreness that collapsed through my body. Waking up earlier had become easier throughout the years, but today was not one of those days.
I stepped out of the bedroom, and there he was… sleeping soundly on the couch. Maybe we had to talk about what happened? Maybe we didn’t. I knew I wasn’t ready, not that I would burst into tears, I had accepted the plummet of our relationship years ago, I just never knew there was a secret like this one that was unknown to the world that he lived in. One that he kept because he possibly didn’t feel safe enough to share. I grabbed my coffee cup, more aggressively than I expected, and walked back into the bedroom to change into my running clothes. If I could take advantage of the situation, I was going to. I always had my best runs after something distressing happened in my life, it was my body’s way of re-centering itself before tackling anything new.
*
I ran. I ran fast, I ran long, I ran through the ins and outs of the small, suburban town we were calling home and I didn’t stop. The pitter-patter of the sprinkle hitting my face; the solid concrete below my feet that burst energy through my toes and up my legs. It was the longest I had ever run… the equivalent to a half marathon. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t carb up like I would have normally done. I just needed to process the information that was being thrown my way, and this seemed to work.
By the time I had reached the Condo building, I saw a small moving truck driving away. Before I let my brain come up with fantastical stories and jump into assumptions that may or may not have been true, I let my heart rate slow down and I unlocked the door to find myself alone. I checked the closet…his clothes were gone. I checked the office… his computer had been taken down and packed away. On my MacBook was a note, written in messy handwriting, barely legible to the human eye and all it said was ‘I’m sorry’. Nothing more, nothing less. I grabbed an old-time favourite from my bookshelf, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, curled up on the old, broken sofa that sat in the office and I read. All morning, afternoon and evening, I read, because I wasn’t emotionally ready for anything else.
*
I wasn’t anything like Salamanca, the main character in the book. I felt inspired by her bravery, her will to find the truth, to seek out an adventure to get what she wants, to fight and to understand the value in understanding. She learned that listening to others, seeing others for who they were, that was the core. I made our relationship problems about me, but I never listened to the other side. I was so focused on how I was feeling, I never took the chance to ask Joel how he was feeling. I didn’t walk in his shoes, because I was so concerned that mine didn’t fit. I wasn’t anything like Salamanca, but I wanted to be. I closed the book on the last line, placed it back on the shelf and decided to take on a new role in my life, one where I understood, I listened, and I put value on myself and on the people who were important to me. The windows into my unconscious started to open, and I recognized the path I needed to take. That journey started on June 20, 2025, and what an adventurous few years it became.