Chapter 9
I awoke to the sound of my alarm beeping at 7:15am. As was becoming normal, I felt my head throb. I drank again last night…

I got up and got dressed, downing glasses of water to try and hydrate myself, and stop myself from feeling like death. Before heading off, I quickly cleaned out the beer bottles from the lounge, hiding them in a box in the laundry, in case Emily came around. It wasn’t bin day yet, and I didn’t want the neighbors to see them and start getting ideas.

Within fifteen minutes, the house was tidier, and the evidence of my problem was out of sight. I grabbed my keys, wallet and camera, before walking out the door and taking the elevator to the garage.

I arrived at Emily’s apartment fairly soon. Whilst the traffic was starting to build up when I got there, it wasn’t due to get really bad for another hour or so. By that point, we’d hopefully be on the freeway heading north for a fairly nice drive up to Albury.

I had confirmed yesterday with the person who listed the S15 on Car Sales that it was still available and let him know we were coming to take a look and go for a test drive. I had also gotten in touch with a mechanic nearby, and offered to pay him to come with us to take a look, as well as made some calls with the registration numbers to make sure it wasn’t stolen. All the gears were in motion. If we liked what we saw, and the mechanic said it was all good, we might just be taking two cars back from Albury.

When Emily walked out of her front door, I tossed her the keys to the MR2.

“You’re not serious…” Emily said, “You said that last time I nearly lost control.”

“Once or twice.” I replied, “I exaggerated it a little so you’d get a more sensible car. But you need to get some practise in, especially if you’re gonna take the S15 for a spin this afternoon.”

“Fine.” Emily sighed, “But don’t say I didn’t warn you…”

Emily climbed into the driver’s seat as I took the unusual spot in the passenger seat next to her whilst she started the engine. This time, her initial take-off was much smoother, with the tyres actually gripping instead of leaving black rubber on the road.

I directed a rather nervous Emily towards the freeway that would make up most of our trip to Albury. Once we got on the freeway, and she realized how simple and boring of a trip it would be, she relaxed a little.

“So I’ve been thinking about Aaron…” Emily began.

“Please tell me you aren’t getting back with that d***.” I asked jokingly.

“Never. But that’s the thing.” Emily replied, “You hate him. And from what I have seen and heard, I don’t like the guy either. So why the hell did I date him?”

“You really want to know?” I asked, “One of the benefits of your situation is that it becomes really hard to be embarrassed about stuff like who you chose to date.”

“Maybe I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.” Emily laughed, “So how did I meet this a**hole?”

“Well he went to our school. He was in the grade above us.” I explained, “You guys never really spoke until the start of year twelve. He had just graduated and you accidentally ran into him at a concert or something and started talking. And it kinda just escalated from there.”

“Did you know he was-” Emily began.

“A p****?” I replied, “Not for sure. He rubbed me the wrong way, but you seemed happy, so I let it slide and put up with him. I mean, I wasn’t going to tell you to dump his a** because I didn’t like him, for reasons I didn’t even understand.”

“Fair enough.” Emily replied, “Though in hindsight, I wish you had.”

“And in hindsight, I wish you caught the bus instead, the day you had your crash.” I retorted jokingly, “Hindsight is a funny thing isn’t it?”

“Very funny indeed.”

Emily continued to drive for the next hour, before tagging out and pulling over. I climbed into the driver’s seat, before taking off onto the freeway again. The last time I saw Emily before her accident, she wasn’t comfortable driving for too long. She didn’t do a great deal of long distance driving on her learner’s permit and wasn’t used to it, whilst I had family who lived in Adelaide and drove there and back a few times. Long drives were a walk in the park for me.

“What about you?” Emily asked.

“What about me?” I asked back.

“Do you have any unsavoury ex lovers?” Emily asked gleefully.

“Lovers? Jesus, you make it sound like I had some sort of mistress.” I replied.

“Point taken. I won’t call them that.” Emily asked, “But do you?”

“Only one.” I replied, “She herself isn’t necessarily a bad person or anything. In another life, had we not dated, we’d have been good friends. Things were just messy when we broke up.”

“How so?” Emily asked.

“I was twenty one at the time, and not in the best state of mind. In all honesty, I am surprised it lasted as long as it did, seeing as I was not in the right headspace to be in a relationship.” I explained, “She wanted to be a priority, which is fair enough mind you, and I just couldn’t make her one. Between work and all of the s*** going on in my head, I unintentionally shut her out, and it hit her hard. So after six months when the relationship did turn to s***, it was really messy.”

“Have you tried contacting her since?” Emily asked.

“No.” I replied, “I hate to admit this, but I have a bad habit of burning bridges without realizing. And that was one of them.”

“Well you didn’t burn this bridge.” Emily said with a smile, as I felt a knot form in my stomach. I needed to tell her, but after her encounter with Aaron that would be hard. And we still had two and a half hours to Albury, all day there, then four hours drive home if this car doesn’t work out. Too long to sit in awkward silence.

Before the conversation could continue, my attention was drawn to my rear view mirror, and the red and blue lights flashing in it, and the sound of a siren. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“Were you speeding?” Emily asked nervously.

“No it’s not that.” I replied, “It’s a random intercept. They probably want to try and defect my car.”

“Can they?” Emily asked.

“Good luck to them if they try.” I muttered, as I pulled over, “It happens fairly often. Profiling me because of the car. If we get this S15, that’s something you will get used to quickly.”

I slowed down to a stop and rolled down my window, as the police officer walked out of the car towards me.

“License please?” the cop asked bluntly.

“Any reason you pulled me over?” I asked as I handed him the card, “I wasn’t speeding.”

“Just a random intercept.” the cop replied, as he took the card back to his car to run the number through their computer.

“Random, my a**.” I muttered to myself.

As the cop walked back to his car, I watched him in the side mirror, glancing down at the tyres to check if they were legal. They weren’t even four months old, so I knew they were safe.


A few minutes later the cop returned with my license.

“The license checks out.” He said, as he handed me the card.

“So I can go?” I asked.

“Not just yet. I just want to take a quick look over your car.” he replied, before tapping the front of the car.

“Can you please open the bonnet?” he asked, as internally I groaned. Another cop who thought he was a mechanic. I obliged to the letter, pulling the lever on my door, before stepping out of the car to lift up the bonnet. I saw a look of confusion hit the cop’s face as it lifted, and revealed a spare tyre and a small amount of cargo space.

“What the hell?” he said.

“If you’re looking for the engine, it’s in the back…” I muttered, “You know what the engine is, right?”

“Watch it.” the cop replied attempting to sound threatening, “You’d hate to get this defected. It’d probably cost more to get roadworthied than the car is worth.”

“Good luck with that.” I replied, as I lifted the ventilated cover off of the engine bay.

The engine bay had been arranged by a professional to allow for the best use of space, and to give a little extra space for a bigger turbocharger, should I decide to add one. All of the piping was chrome, with the rocker cover custom painted. Truth is, when I got this car, I spent way too much money putting it into collectors condition.

After about twenty minutes of the cop looking for anything to use as an excuse to defect me, even resorting to checking how low the car was at every point, and how loud the exhaust was, he finally seemed to have given up.

“So can I go?” I asked irritably, “Because I kind of have plans, and my passenger is waiting.”

“Fine.” the cop muttered, before going back to his car. I made my way back into the driver’s seat of the MR2.

“Sorry about that.” I muttered, “The guy was a d***.”

“What happened?” Emily asked, “Did he defect you?”

“God knows he tried.” I replied as I took off, “The reason it took so long was because he was looking for anything unroadworthy, and there is nothing. I paid a crap-tonne getting it into this condition. Not like he’d know anything anyway. The idiot didn’t even know where to look for the engine.”

Emily laughed, as we continued to drive.

Whilst he was being subtle, I could see the cop a few car lengths behind me. I was sitting underneath the speed limit, however he wasn’t taking the opportunity to overtake me like everyone else on the road, but instead kept me in his sights, waiting for me to do something wrong. Eventually an idiot in a late nineties commodore flew past us, and caught his attention, causing him to overtake me and chase the new guy down. Pretty soon after we drove past both of them pulled over on the side of the road, as I returned to my normal speed of a few k’s over the limit.

“By the way, I found out something interesting last night.” Emily said cheerfully.

“What’s that?” I asked, thinking nothing of it.

“I went to Tom’s place for dinner, and he said that I was bullied a fair bit when I was a kid, and ended up in therapy because of it.”

“I’d call that more scarring than interesting, but each to their own.” I retorted half jokingly.

“No, not that.” Emily explained, “Apparently they made me record a video diary once a month. Tom said I did that for at least five years, maybe longer, and that I probably put them on a portable hard-drive.”

“Wait, what?” I replied, slightly shocked.

“Basically, five to ten years of my life is stored on a hard-drive somewhere in my apartment.” Emily explained, “If I can find this, I can start putting the pieces of my life back together.”

“That’s awesome.” I lied, as a fear gripped me. If she found this hard drive, it could jeopardize everything. I wanted to tell her eventually, but in my own time, and if she finds out from this first, then everything I have worked towards could be gone in the blink of an eye.

“I just need to think of where I put it.” Emily explained, “If it is a video diary, then chances are I would hide it somewhere. I just can’t think of where I’d hide stuff.”

Suddenly I had a sense of deja vu, and a flashback to six years ago. Emily’s eighteenth birthday party.


This time I was the first to arrive at the party. After the year before, where I ruined the whole night, I was eager to show Emily that I wasn’t taking her second chance for granted.

I sat by the fire outside, as Emily came to the back door, and looked around, before quickly and silently gesturing at me to follow her. I got up and followed her up the stairs in silence, into her room as she shut the door.

“What’s going on?” I asked curiously.

“I wanted to show you something before everyone else arrived.” Emily replied with a grin.

“But it’s only your family here?” I asked, “Why are you being so secretive?”

“Dad doesn’t let me have guys in my room, and I can imagine Aaron wouldn’t be impressed if he knew you were in here. And if Tom found out about this, it’d be gone in a day.”

Emily walked over to a tall. vertical set of shelves. It was a large white rectangle that stood upright, with shelves crossing it. She quickly moved the contents off of the base, and pushed down on it with a little bit of force. Suddenly there was a click, as she removed a panel, revealing a small cavity, from which she produced a bottle of red liquid.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s an awesome hiding place.” Emily explained, “A few years back when Mum let me redecorate, she gave me her card and let me buy stuff online. So I got this set of shelves just in case.”

“That’s cool,” I replied, “But I was talking about the bottle.”

“Jack Daniel’s whiskey.” Emily replied, “But packed full of cinnamon so it burns a little more going down.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, she produced two shot glasses, filling them both, before returning the bottle to its hiding place, and replacing the panel that now sat flush and seemed to be part of the shelf.

Emily handed me a shot glass.

“To an awesome night.” she exclaimed, holding her glass up, and gesturing at me to do the same, “And many more.”

At the same time we both drank the shots, and both cringed at the burning in our mouths and throats, before making our way downstairs as to avoid anyone noticing we weren’t there.


Emily kept talking, but I was only half listening.

“Emily isn’t one to break a habit.” I thought to myself, “If she still has those shelves, chance are the hard drive is in there.”

I was trying to calm myself down, but it wasn’t working. Whilst I knew that Emily probably wouldn’t find it on her own, I wasn’t sure if anyone else knew that hiding place existed. If someone did, and mentions it to her, then she would, and I couldn’t take that chance. I’d have to find it first.

I felt a sense of guilt wash over me at the thought of taking this hard drive, knowing how important it was to her. However, the contents of it could be dangerous.

I could take it, check it, then return it. However I didn’t have time to look over nearly ten years worth of entries, and I didn’t have the right to watch that.

In the end, I settled for a compromise. I’d find it, and remove everything dated after that night when things between us went to s***. I’d keep it so that she could see it one day, after I had a chance to explain everything to her.

At least, that’s what I told myself, when deep down, a big part of me just wanted to remove those files from existence, and pretend things between us never changed.