Love Notes

Chapter 2.

I left a note for Jamie letting him know that I was gone and then I hit the pavement. I love running, I had joined various running clubs over the years but my preference is to run solo now. Nothing can beat sticking some earphones in and switching off. It always helps clear my mind. So I hit play on Spotify and ran while I tried to sift through my thoughts.

In the two days since it happened Jaime and I haven't spoken much, and I don't give more than short, cold answers when we do. He hasn't made an attempt to apologise. He stopped apologising a long time ago really. I guess we've both come to accept his temper as a part of him.

Jamie and I have been together for nearly four years. I met him the night of my twenty second birthday. It wasn't fireworks and hearts colliding and all of that. It was me drunkenly tripping over his feet on my way to the bathroom. Us flirting and dancing. Cute dates and stolen kisses. Flowers and amazing sex. He won me over. We moved in together after a year, I guess that's when I really started to know him.

I knew before I agreed to move in that he was kind of the jealous type, but not in a way that I ever thought I'd have to worry about. I thought it was cute if I'm honest. If a guy tried to talk to me when we were out he would pout his bottom lip out and give some sad puppy dog eyes. I'd usually kiss him and remind him that I was his. Forever his. It always did the trick. And then later we'd go back to his place and have sex until the sun came up. It was all part of love in my eyes, so the first time he hit me, it really took me by surprise.

                             —————

I was studying to become a music teacher, it's all I've ever wanted to do. My love for music began when my Grandfather started to teach me to play the violin, I was only three years old. I didn't realise how impressive that fact was until I started interacting with other musicians.

He taught me other instruments too but I always gravitated back to the violin. I would have played it every day if I he let me. He was once a music teacher himself, so I was attempting to follow in his footsteps so to speak.

My Grandfather adored everything about music, and I adored everything about him. My Pop Pop, thats what Sarah and I called him. He was absolutely my first love. He started the fire within me for music that only became more intense as time wore on and I really wanted to make him proud.

I had secured a training position in a local school while getting my degree, it was part of the course requirement, and I was working under an amazing teacher, Zachary Keller. He was a master of his craft. More importantly he could literally reach into the souls of his students and pull amazing music pieces from them. I could only dream that I would be able to do this with my own students when the time came. I wanted to be him one day.

He wasn't unattractive to look at, I could see why the girls in his classes blushed when he complimented their work. He was a little shorter than Jamie, but still hovered above my 5'3 build. He was fit, and wore those thick rimmed glasses that had become popular again, they made him look like Clark Kent.

I wasn't into him at all, not in that way. He was at least twelve years older than me, maybe more. I saw him in more of a father figure role more than anything, even though he was too young to possibly be my father.

Zach and I never really discussed much of our personal lives, other than the general 'how was your weekend' chit chat. So when he messaged me about some upcoming music exams we needed to organise, I didn't think it would be a big deal to Jamie.

I don't know, maybe I had gushed about how amazing Zach was too much, or I gave the training position too much of my attention. Either way something switched inside Jamie when he saw Zachs name pop up on my phone screen while I was dishing up our dinner.