Kate OakleyOne lazy Sunday afternoon is when they first met and when it all began.
Meg had awoken Sunday morning full of excitement and anticipation at the thought of the Sunday ahead of her being spent down by the river in her favourite pub, with her favourite friends and drinking Chablis, her favourite drink.
She had showered, dried her hair fixing it in a high ponytail with her favourite silk scarf and carefully chosen a modest, yet clinging in all the right places, silk turquoise summer dress.
Having exchanged the usual hugs and kisses with her fr iends on arrival, she noticed him, arms crossed, leaning against the low wall, the sparkling river behind him. The perfect backdrop.
She remembers locking eyes with him almost immediately and the smile he gave her was the smile that would afford him so many chances in the future which were ultimately undeserved.
None of her friends knew who he was but once he joined their group on that Sunday afternoon all agreed that they felt they had known this charming and unforgivably attractive man for as long as they’d known each other.
And so the web started to be woven.
Compliments on the scarf holding her hair and the dress “the colour of her eyes” were enough to bring a flush to Meg’s face and a desire to keep him close.
The ability to make you feel that you are the only person in the room was enough to cloud the judgement of friends and family and further tighten his web.
And now, exactly one year on, on a Sunday afternoon Meg stands in his kitchen, preparing her escape.
Tilting her head she listens. Nothing. Not a sound. The sleeping pills in their final nightcap doing their job.
Turning off her phone so that the tracker, which he had insisted she installed, no longer works she quietly heads to the door and slowly turns the handle.
Despite knowing that there is no imminent danger, sweat still runs down her back and down her face into her turquoise eyes.
Stepping out of the door she turns to look back one final time.
Smashed wine glasses litter the floor, the red wine stains now dried. Not the first time such a scene had greeted her in the morning but today had to be the last.
Head down, she pulls a hoodie over her hair and heads to the main road.
Having reached the bus stop she waits.
Eventually as her escape pulls in, she climbs the steps, pays her money then head down finds her seat.
Her watch tells her an hour has passed.
Would he have awoken and found her gone?
She pictures the rage which would follow and then tear through the house. Suffocating everything in its path.
Meg pulls a tissue from her bag and hold it against her mouth in an attempt to suppress the urge to be sick.
Looking back in her bag she sees the turquoise dress. The only possession she grabbed before she left. She didn’t know why other than she used to love that dress. The colour of her eyes.
But suddenly this dress also seems soiled. A bad omen.
As panic once again returns Meg kneels on the seat and pushes, open the window and feeds the dress through the opening
For a moment she keeps hold of the dress and watches its delicate material violently whipped up by the wind, it’s iridescent colours catching the sun. Then as though ridding her life of its final piece of poisoned evidence she lets go watching until the spot of blue finally disappears out of sight.
