So the wordcount hasn’t been going quite as well as I would have liked but I’m still on track if I can knock over another 1,000 words tonight.

But thought I’d update a bit on where we’ve gotten to so far:

Somewhat hurriedly, she made her way back up the stairs. She wondered at what point her life had become a miriad of tiny deceptions. She went into the bathroom to wash her face. She liked the tingling of the cleanser and the sting of the toner as if it was stripping the tiniest layer away and she was left with something new and untouched. Vigorously, she applied the cleanser and then waited for the water to become steaming hot before wetting the washcloth. She held the cloth to her face for some time, letting the heat sooth her. When she removed it, she looked at her face in the mirror, hard, as if even the mirror was capable of deception, like she was.

When she looked in the mirror, she saw what everyone else saw: a twenty-six year old who looked older than she should, a dark brown mess of hair, dull green eyes, and a slightly ruddy complexion from a bit too much sun. Occupational hazard of living in paradise locals would joke. But it didn’t feel like paradise to her. Everyone knew her name here, Munro O’Brien. And eveyrone said her name as though they knew her inside and out, and everything she did was perfectly predictable. She hated that, because most of the time it was true. Munro O’Brien, who had never left her home town, lived with her high school boyfriend, and was always perfectly reliable.

She heard Jason moving around downstairs and it snapped her back into the present. An entirely undesirable place to be. When they met, she had felt special, because he chose her. But now she just felt like he made the wrong choice, and so had she.

Munro looked at her reflection in the mirror and looked herself in the eye, for the first time in a long while. And for a moment some of the brightness returned to her eyes.

“You are Munro O’Brien” she said to herself, and not the way everyone else used her name but in the way she wanted it to be used, as though it meant something, “this is not your whole damn life”.

She went downstairs. Jason beamed at her, apparently over his earlier mood.

“Do you want pizza for dinner?”

“Sounds great”, she smiled back at him, attempting to match his enthusiasm.

“What do you want?” he slid the take away menu across the bench. She stood next to him, slumped over the kitchen bench and wondered why they even bothered. They practically knew the menu by heart anyway.

“Mexicana?” she half-said, half-asked.

“Girl after my own heart” Jason replied, leaning over to kiss her hair. Munro enjoyed the moment, leaning into him until he pulled away to make the call.

Munro walked around the kitchen bench and made her way to the couch, flopping down into its soft pillows. She had insisted on this couch. Jason would have preferred something firmer. But she liked a couch that felt like a big inviting pillow, and in the end he hadn’t cared enough to put up a fight.

Not really reading, she flicked through a home design magazine. Althoough she would probably be just as happy to stare out the window at the dusk as it enveloped everything. But if she did that, Jason would ask her what she was thinking and she didn’t really want to tell him, so she pretended to be busy with the magazine instead.

Jason ordered and sat down in an armchair opposite the comfy couch, which he usually avoided. He flicked on the TV and eventually settled on Sport News. With Jason happily distracted, Munro put down the magazine. She was now free to stare out the window without him paying any attention at all.

She loved the way the garden slowly darkened into nothingness at dusk. But for once, the sight of it didn’t comfort her. She wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t here. She wanted to be someone who wasn’t herself. She felt like she was being slowly but surely suffocated. Jason loved her, she reminded herself, as if this thought would stop her feeling trapped. And she loved him, she concentrated on each word in her mind, hoping to give it more meaning. Maybe I don’t the words slipped into her mind so easily before she could stop them. Munro looked at him, engrossed in the Tennis, his brow furrowed in concentration. And instead of the person she had known since she was sixteen for a second she just saw a stranger.

“Are you going to get that?” Jason was looking at her expectantly in a way tht said this was not the first time he had asked her the question.

“OK” Munro shook herself back into the present, took the notes and change that Jason had carefully laid out on the bench and opened the door for the pizza guy.

“Must be Tuesday” he joked

“Must be” Munro forced a smile

“Who’s playing?” he yelled over her to Jason

“It’s just a replay – they’re rained out, Archy” Jason replied

“Typical”, Archy shot back.

Munro took the pizzas from Archy and placed the money into his hand all while his gaze was still focused on Jason.She would have sighed, but one of them might notice. Small towns. No such thing as annonymous home delivery. Archy and Jason continued to drone on about weather and Tennis. She moved away from the door, allowing Archy to move forward into the living room.

“Do you want to stay for a bit?” Jason was asking. Just like always, Munro thought.

“No, gotta run. Deliveries.” Archy said regretfully, and with one last longing look at the dining table he was gone.

Munro took the pizza into the kitchen and grabbed some plates. If it was up to her she would have sat on the comfy couch and eaten out of the box. If she’d done that though, Jason’s head would most likely explode. She smiled a little at the thought. So she did what she always did and transferred the pizza onto plates and took it to the dining table.

They ate in silence for awhile. The sound of chewing seemed deafening to Munro, like it was boucning off the walls and creating tiny little echos.

“Good day?” asked Jason finally.

“The usual” Munro replied, “we got some new books in, so I spent most of the day entering everything into the system.”

“Anything interesting?” Munro wrinkled her nose

“Not unless you’re into serial killers – the library is starting a new section” Jason barked a laugh

“They’re giving serial killers a whole section?” Munro shrugged

“More like a display – it seems popular at the moment”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit of a contradiction for a library to be populist?” Jason asked, half teasing, half expecting an answer.

“Because we’re all fuddy-duddy inconsequential remnants of the past?!” Munro knew he was joking, but was still just a little annoyed. Even though she knew it was silly, she couldn’t help herself.

“Not you, babe” jason laughed, “you’re just pleasantly old-fashioned.” Munro thought about arguing the point and even opened her mouth to say something, but then she closed it again, it just seemed pointless. She wondered if she really was old fashioned or it was just that Jason’s version of Munro was old-fashioned. Instead of pondering this for too long, Munro opted to change the subject.

“What about you? Get everything done?”

“Not quite, but almost” he paused, taking another bite, “should be finished the rewiring by tomorrow at least.”

“Good. I’m sure Ally is sick of living at her Mother’s by now.” Munro replied, sticking to the small talk.

“Why?” Jason asked, genuinely puzzled, “Home cooking, everything cleaned for her. I’d think she’d be loving it.”

“Not everything’s about cooking and cleaning” she teased.

“It is to me” Jason grinned and Munro was somewhat horrified to find that he was being entirely genuine.

Later that night, lying in bed, Munro looked at Jason sleeping beide her and realised that despite 10 years together, thye really didn’t know one another at all, or they chose not to. And for once in her young life she did something impulsive, unexpected and foolish. She kissed him, got dressed, went downstairs, got into her car and didn’t look back, not even once.