Aidan is dreaming, cuddled up with his wife together on the couch in their apartment in the dark. Rosa's hair tickles his cheek, her head shifting slightly against his shoulder. In the background, unwatched behind closed eyes, Aidan can hear the movie playing to itself. He has long since lost interest in it, as sleep claimed him. He is content to just sit, hovering now on the border between dreams and wakefulness, feeling the warmth of her next to him, her breath slow and steady in his ear.
His seat trembles beneath him, and Rosa stirs, but Aidan keeps his eyes closed, letting himself sink back down into sleep. The seat moves again, lurching, forcing him to surface with the first faint whispers of apprehension. Rosa is still asleep on his shoulder, but the couch lurches a third time, trembling beneath him. He tries to stir her, piecing together the situation as he rouses from sleep, but Rosa doesn't wake. The house shakes violently, giving him a moment of stomach-churning emptiness, and he realises that he needs to act.
He turns to his wife but whatever he does, she doesn't shift, slumbering on as the walls begin to creak and groan. He needs to pull her to safety, recalling things about seeking shelter under tables or in doorways, finding the structural strongpoints of the building. He tries to pick her up but she's too heavy, pressing him down in the couch as the apartment begins to fall to pieces around them. He calls out her name, hollering it into her slumbering face, but it's no use. He has to decide, right here, right now, whether he tries to rescue his wife, or he finds safety for himself. He's screaming at her now to wake up, panic setting in as the ceiling cracks like dried leaves, covering them in dust. The sound rumbles on and on like some titanic, unending thunderclap.
He's trapped. He can't leave her. He can't move her. He can't save her.
His eyes snap open, a jolt of adrenaline coursing through him, his vision swimming. Aidan focuses on the tiny screen in front of him, playing a car chase, relaying the music and the screech of tires to his ears via the headphones he wears. He blinks, disorientated, looking to his left to see a blonde head nestled against his shoulder, and beyond that, rows of people in seats. He looks to the right, out through a little oval window and down at a sprawling cityscape, a thread of silver branching through it like the spidery fingers of some giant hand, shining in the early morning sun. Clouds whip past the window and his seat lurches again before settling back down into stillness as they dip below the cloud-line into clear air.
He turns back to the girl's head, feeling the softness of her hair against his neck, watching the way her mouth shifts, answering someone in her dream. But she isn't Rosa, her name is Annalise, and suddenly a crashing sadness overwhelms him, as if it had just been yesterday that he had been sitting on his couch with his wife, sharing a moment with the woman he loved.
The movie freezes and a man's voice begins an announcement, interrupting his thoughts. They are coming in to land.
The blonde head lifts away from him as Annalise wakes up. She rubs her eyes, raking her fingers through her hair, rolling her shoulders. She crosses her tanned legs, revealed in denim shorts, and finally looks across to Aidan.
"Sorry. I must have dozed off."
Aidan smiles. "You went out like a light," he replies.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"About a movie and a half."
She frowns. "Sorry," she says again.
"No problem."
"Ah, worries," she corrects him with a little grin, "It's no worries. You're in Australia now."
Aidan laughs, but then the plane lurches as they pass through a cloud, and she clutches at his arm. He can feel her fingers digging in.
YOU ARE READING
A Place Beyond The Horizon
RomanceContains adult content, sex scenes, infidelity. Aidan's marriage has been shattered by his wife's actions. Unable to cope with the thing Rosa did, he boarded a plane and put as much distance between them as possible. Alone for the first time in year...
