“Oh Soul.”

He was supposed to have picked her up from the airport. But when the usually time-conscious Italian did not pull up in some sort of car or on his Triumph Scrambler within the first half hour – the woman had caught a taxi to his apartment, knowing something was up.

She had heard the music blaring from his apartment from the ground floor of the building.

Letting herself in, she had trailed across the darkened lounge room – moving to the bedroom with the closed door from which the music was pounding from. Electric guitar and youthful male vocals hit her ears in full-force as she swung it open.

Soul Moretti lay sprawled on his bed, half-naked and tangled in his blankets, a nearly empty bottle of tequila in one of his hands. Blue eyes stared up at the roof.

Those blue eyes, usually completely closed to revealing emotion of any nature; were rimmed in tears and etched with agony.

Delilah O’Reilly bit down on her bottom lip, brows contorting into a helpless frown. Suppressing a sigh, she dumped her bags by the doorway and let her lithe form move across the bed. Her skinny jean and singlet-clad body sliding up along his, she let her slender fingers run though his dark hair.

“What are you doing Soul?” her voice a soft murmur, expressive, worried, as she pressed her mouth against his jaw in a tender kiss. “Isn’t it about time you stepped back out into the world to find a beautiful, vivacious girl who will make all your pain go away?”

“...I have you.” His reply was delayed. He was trying to be dismissive, but his voice was just a weak croak that cracked from his dry throat.

“I’m made of shadows and scorn, sweetheart. You need a girl made of milk and honey.”

The bare chest Delilah was leaning on rose and fell in a despairing sigh.

“I had that once.”


In his other hand, dancing along his fingertips and lined in years worth of dust that was rubbed away only every so often; was an antique gold engagement ring.


          --------------------------


It was cold; but I didn’t feel it. It was quiet, too; and I could feel that. All that disturbed my silence was my runners against the pavement, the sound of my own breathing, and my pug keeping pace at my heels.

It had been cloudy over the last week, but this evening a sunset had broken through the grey, to bathe this particular pocket of affluent suburbia in golden and pink. I’d forgotten to wear sunglasses.

But it didn’t matter because it was quiet.


“Hey! Hey girly, where you off to in such a hurry?”

I didn’t like that. Someone was calling out and breaking my silence.

And then I realised that whoever it was had been calling out to me.

I slowed, stopped, and turned around. I knew I would curse myself soon for breaking my pace; a singlet and a pair of short exercise shorts would do very little to shield my lithe body from the impending cold. Hair was swept back into a ponytail, but my fringe played havoc with my eyes. Squinting against the sun, I looked down the driveway the voice had come from.

He was lounging against his car; talking to a kid he was obviously in the process of dropping home. He was tall, tanned, blonde with expressive green eyes. He towered over me now, but we both still remembered the way I would tease him as a child; back when I was taller. We had been separated as aspirations took us down separate paths during schooling and university; but he worked for my Dad now.

We had always managed to find some sort of way to stay together.

His arms had been folded across his chest, but they were open and ready to embrace me by the time I collided into him. I could feel loose wisps of my hair being stirred by his chuckle. My pug danced excitedly around our feet.

We had actually seen each other last night. But under very different circumstances, surrounded by grieving people – and we had been grieving too. But here, now? Besides some curious kid fiddling with his battered looking mountain bike, we were alone.

We were never alone.

His fingers were intertwining with mine, and I could see the beginnings of his smile – the smile that had always reserved especially for me when we were young teenagers. A smile that reached his eyes. A smile that would always make my feet feel like they were simply about to defy all concepts of gravity and lift from the ground.

“Oh, oh, I had wanted to talk to you so badly last night-“

“Last night?”

The voice that had cut me off mid-sentence had not been one I was expecting.

Female, sharp. I looked to the car he was leaning on, and arched a slender brow as another girl emerged from it. Short. Round. With dull brunette hair and a crude haircut. The girl he had chosen to be with nearly three years ago – after I had turned around found someone else.

I’d occasionally wondered what things would have been like if I’d picked him.

“Hello.”

I did not like the way her eyes were narrowed accusingly at him.

“You saw her last night?”

I did not like the way she did not respond to my greeting; or even spoke to me at all.

But that was the way it had always been. I had learned early in their relationship that the girl had disliked me before we even met, and we’d only met once since I had learned this. Three years and we had met once. That time, she had done the same thing. Talk about me, around me, as if I was not actually there.

“Myself and a few others were at her house last night to prepare a notice for James to put in the paper.”

The girl looked at the boy in clear disbelief. “What on earth would you do that for?”

My eyes instantly stung, breath caught in the back of my throat. When I did not respond, I could feel his hand rest against the small of my back; and he chose to respond for me.

“He died.”

Instead of choosing to focus on the sadness that radiated from the both of us – slumping our shoulders forward as if we were tired, wounded soldiers – she instead chose to narrow her eyes at his hand pressed against my back. I could see her nostrils flaring.

“And so what’s this... Meeting now?”

“Chance.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Chance?”

“I’m taking my dog for a walk. And live in the next street over.”

My voice, as I attempted to assert my vocal presence once more, was perhaps a little too sharp.

And she still did not look at me. Or the pug that grinned up at her with his curled tail wagging far too enthusiastically.

“Well, we should be going, love. Your parents are expecting us for dinner.”

I bristled. How could she continue to ignore me? I had never done a thing to insult or belittle her. Hell, we’d met once. The way she chose to steadfastly look up at his face without even sparing a glance to me, was beyond comprehension.

The boy, with those soft green eyes like Bells Beach on a fading autumn afternoon just like this one, looked at me apologetically. “I’ll see you at the funeral.” He murmured quietly under his breath.

The mention of the impending funeral would normally have been enough to have me clutching my stomach out of sheer physical pain – but the seething fury that bubbled my blood left my mind too sharp and my wits too intact.

So I grabbed him. The hand that didn’t have a lead wrapped around it lurched out, snatching the collar of his polo shirt so I could pull him back to me. And I stood on my tip toes, pressing against him to set my lips against his cheek in a soft kiss.

I could feel the warmth of a light blush highlight his face before I was even pulling away.

And he was doing his best to conceal a slightly shy – though thoroughly pleased – grin.

“Call me later; I’ll want to see you before then.” My voice was a velvety coo; the one I used to use when I was either toying with him, or wanted something from him.

He swallowed, and nodded.

I offered him a wave and a provocative little grin as I stepped back from the pair of them. His eyes were fixated on mine, hands hastily shoved into his pockets as he hunched his shoulders around his ears to hide that smile. I felt the momentary desire to just keep watching that grin until it finally faded – so it would take longer for me to forget it – but I knew this was my queue.

And I knew that as I turned around and stretched my long limbs into a fresh jog with my pug prancing excitedly at my heels; she was finally looking at me.