privacy, secrecy, dark rooms

Between August and September, just weeks after their first meeting in the office, O was already staying most nights at E’s garage apartment. When she received her eviction notice—the garage under the oaks set for demolition to clear the land for two subdivisions—they painted the walls in whimsical tropical scenes in between bouts of packing.

Then she moved into his condo with him and it was suddenly Jekyll and Hyde, "None of your business!," privacy, secrecy, dark rooms.

O was left scratching his head.

He paid for the shed in Gonzales she lived in afterwards, and relocated east, back to his roots. He left no forwarding address, just his old work info:

Manager, Policy Standards Implementation
The Western Commission on Quality
1 Forked Road
San Sequestrado, TX

For all anyone knows E is still in the dark.

Then one day, for no reason beyond boredom and exhausted employment prospects, O decided to go looking for E.