Emma knew where she wanted to be and it wasn’t here, lying next to a man she’d loved once but had fallen out of love with a long time ago. It wasn’t as though he was a bad man, he wasn’t, but Daniel just wasn’t exciting, he wasn’t spontaneous; he wasn’t the man she’d married. Or maybe he was and it was she who’d changed because ever since her 40th birthday a few months back she’d felt as though something was changing. Call it a mid-life crisis, because she sure as hell couldn’t think of any other way of putting it, but whatever it was it was making her re-think her whole life. And just what it was that she wanted from it.
Sighing heavily she threw off the duvet and slipped out of bed, leaving her husband still sleeping in the semi-darkened room, a gap in the curtains sending a shaft of light across the covers of their huge king-sized bed. A bed big enough for her to avoid any contact with Daniel if she so wished. Which she did. Often. Even though it made her quite sad because they’d once been inseparable, as close as any couple could be, but maybe they’d just been together too long now, maybe they’d just run their course. The attraction was gone; she didn’t feel that spark when he touched her like she had done way back when they’d first met, she didn’t feel that rush of love that had used to hit her in the pit of her stomach when he smiled at her. It just wasn’t there anymore, no matter how hard she tried to make it come back.
Pulling her blonde hair back into a high ponytail she checked her make-up in the mirror and slipped her watch onto her wrist, adding another coat of lip gloss before she left Daniel to his well-deserved lie in and quietly let herself out of the house for another day at the office of ‘Barker & Blackwell’, solicitors.
And as soon as she left the house Emma felt as though a weight had instantly been lifted from her shoulders, the sun shining brightly doing everything to lift her mood as she walked to the bus stop, smiling at complete strangers, because she wasn’t just heading towards another day at work. Not now. Not anymore. She was heading towards another day of being the person she really wanted to be, beside the person she really wanted to be with, and there was something so incredibly liberating about that. For so many years she’d just let things tick along nicely, carry on like they always had done because she and Daniel, like so many other long-time married couples, had fallen into that comfortable routine, that familiar rut that became harder to break the longer it went on. Until something had happened to make Emma realise that there was a world out there where she could live again, come alive again - and she hadn’t even realised she’d been dead. Not until that night. Not until he’d shown her.
The short journey to work passed in a blur of memories – memories of a night that she could never tell Daniel about, never tell anyone about because it was wrong and it was dangerous but it was setting her world alight and she had no intention of stopping it from continuing. It probably should never have happened in the first place, given her circumstances – given both their circumstances - but now that it had she was running with it and enjoying every secret, mind-blowing minute more than she’d ever thought possible.
Being greeted with a pile of paperwork couldn’t even dampen her mood when she finally arrived at work, closing the door to her private office and sitting down behind her desk, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes as she took a few more minutes to remember last Friday evening, and the events that had finally made her realise that life was too short to settle for something that was good – when you could have something that was great.
A knock at the door made her jump and she opened her eyes, sitting up straight in her chair and clasping her hands in front of her, trying to compose herself but the memories were hard to leave behind. The touch of his fingers on her skin, his mouth on hers, it was all still so fresh in her mind, even after a weekend of being without him. A weekend when even the guilt of what she was doing to Daniel couldn’t stop her from re-living every second and loving the way it made her feel.
