Alison lingered over packing her last case, as if she could postpone the moment of departure. She found herself remembering some of the conversations she had had since sentence was passed.
Why had she ever been so stupid as to think he would wait around for her? She had come back to commit a proclamation of love but that just wasn’t enough. He had needed her there when it was most important and when she had failed to do so, he gave up. It was as if a click of the fingers was lingering, ringing in the air. He had simply given up. Words made it sound so easy, so straightforward and so effortless, yet the heartache was unbearable. He had given up on her.

“Make me Alison, I can’t cope with us anymore, I don’t even think I recognise the real you anymore, the Alison I thought had to be there, inside you somewhere”. He had screamed at her that day, willing, urging her to fight back but she knew he had a point. Her hectic lifestyle had led her to adapt herself and her ways over the past two years and it had changed her whole perception of life. Since she had been promoted, things had been different and the ones around her had suffered, the most nearest and dearest in her life had drifted further until they could no longer be classified as friends, merely acquaintances from the past. She became to find herself, realising she did have the potential. All of those years she had held her own self doubt and had rated herself so low, he had picked her up. Friends or not it didn’t matter to her, he had been there. He knew how to change everything, how to make her feel so incredibly special that nothing else mattered.
Six months had passed almost to the day since that conversation had been aired and Ali had replayed those sixty six minutes more times than she could remember. It was as though her brain had picked out the most wounding words and jumbled them together so that she no longer held any happy memories. He hadn’t called nor contacted her in any way, shape or form and she felt almost pacified by that. She wanted him to take his time and realise that he needed her there, he had made a mistake. This however was not the case, not according to him anyway.
“Come on then, I’m freezing my knockers off here, what are you waiting for? Open the bleeding door!” they stood on the doorstep outside their flat at 2am on a Sunday morning, “Me have the keys, what are you on about woman? Come on, stop having me on, we need to get the heating on before we freeze to our grave!” They had argued until they were asked to carry on elsewhere and they had left their separate ways. If only one of them had had the common sense to pick up the keys from the hooks marked ‘Keys’ earlier then none of it would have happened. She began to realise how petty the arguments they had shared were, it was all so meaningless.
Pants, jeans, tops.. She needed to get away, for good this time. She had to do it properly, a one way ticket to the land down under. Sun, sand and sea, what more could a girl want? Apart from the one thing she wanted more than anything.. Her mind needed clearing, airing on a clothes line for a few days if only to get some fresh air at least. A new career choice and a whole new start, there was nothing, nothing holding her back. Dress, jeans, sandals.. She had yet to plan what was going to happen when she got off the plane, let alone where she would live or how she would obtain money. She remembered reading from a poem ‘Hitcher’, ‘he was following the sun to west from east with just a toothbrush and the good earth for a bed. The truth, he said, was blowin’ in the wind’ If it was good enough for him, she thought, it was good enough for her.. she quite fancied herself as a Bob Dylan hippy anyway. BEEP BEEP. The taxi was early and she had no chance to look back although she hadn’t planned to anyway. This was her stop and her moment of departure had arrived. She was ready.