Chapter 15 – Addicted To You

Amy drove back to Melbourne with a heavy heart and a strong feeling she was leaving everything she longed to be back in Mt Thomas. With every sign she passed and every kilometre she drove she got further and further away from it, and by the time she was pulling into the carpark behind her flat, she was hastily wiping the tears from her eyes that had welled all the way home. She had left Alex behind. What had that said about her commitment to him? The commitment she had made to herself when she had escaped Melbourne before Christmas, ashamed of her life and the way she lived and determined to go back to Mt Thomas and find her old self again?

But she walked inside and couldn't even look at the phone. The thought of calling him scared her, and she turned her mobile onto silent so she couldn't hear him if he tried to reach her. What would she say? 'I want to spend new years with no one else in this world but you?' It might've been the truth, but someone like Amy Fox could never say that out loud. So she went to bed, lying on top of the sheets as a lack of summer breeze filtered through her open window, and tried to think of a way to get out of spending new years eve with the man she lusted after. She even shuddered at the thought of HER lusting after someone. Lusting? Since when had she lusted over anyone? This was new.

The next few days were torturous, as Alex was never far from her mind. And December 31 arrived and without knowing why, Amy walked out of the office at 5:30pm. She caught herself as she walked across the carpark behind the Homicide building and sat for several moments in the seat of her car, wondering what the hell she was about to do. She drove home in a daze and thought some more, and then before she knew it, she was heading back to Mt Thomas for the second time in two weeks. What would he say when she got there? Would he be back in the arms of Rhiannon by then, thinking when she drove away from him they were over even before they'd really begun?

Maybe I'm crazy to suppose
I'd ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations
You'd receive

But she kept driving anyway and it was well after 9pm when she drove past the sign again. "Welcome to Mt Thomas" it read, shining brightly in her headlights. She pushed down her little flurrying feeling of excitement she had in the pit of her stomach to be back here so soon, because she knew she was taking one hell of a risk, not even calling, not even texting, not even letting him know what she was doing this new years eve. She just hoped she could find him, because even though she didn't know what to say, she knew she wanted to be with him that night. She hoped feverishly as she drove that he would understand.

She knew he was stationed at Widgeree, but would he be there? She didn't want to drive straight through Mt Thomas on her way to his station and pass him without even knowing it. Because if she got there and he wasn't there then she knew that that would be the sign that she wasn't meant to spend the occasion with him. It would be all it would take to send her scurrying back to Melbourne, forever afraid of the unknown.

When she reached the station, her heart fell lower inside her chest. It was already feeling pretty heavy with the anticipation of what might happen, and so when all she saw was a lonesome dim light on on the verandah, she gave a moan, louder than expected, and surprised herself with how disappointed she felt. She had come all this way, and he probably wasn't even there. But she wasn't going to give it up that easily. She dug her heals in and leant against her car, determined to wait all night if she had to. She was going to see him.

This determination lasted for all of 15 seconds before she lurched herself off the car and walked across the wide expanse of lawn and towards the door to the tiny Widgeree station. Half way across the grass she looked up to see a light flick on in the back room of the building. She gasped. He was there. It made her run. She jumped up onto the verandah and stood breathless at the door, so eager to knock but so not ready at the same time.

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly twelve o'clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year
New Year's Eve

As she pondered this, terrified, the door sprang open. "Amy," Alex breathed, shocked yet pleased to see her. They held back from jumping on each other, but not by much. She looked at him, apologetic for her hasty farewell days before, and desperate in need of anything he could offer her. The tears spilled down her cheeks as they connected in the doorway in a quick moment of passion. But she refused to think about all the time she had wasted being scared. Everything that mattered was beginning right now. It was him that was holding her on New Years Eve.

We'll be making promises in the dark

Our resolutions

As a brand new year is about to start

And we're together

What followed was a year of tooing and froing between Mt Thomas and Melbourne. He stayed and she commuted as Alex sorted out his marriage back in Widgeree. Amy still felt uncomfortable having come between a marriage – a link Amy had always thought really meant something to two people – and so she tactfully stayed away throughout January and February, only visiting when she missed his company so much that she could no longer stay away a moment longer. She would then drive through the night to get back to visit him and they would sit together in her car because there was nowhere else they could be alone, and she would often fall asleep beside him on the backseat. When morning came he would walk to work, grab a spare uniform from out of the closet just inside the station front door and she would join the peak hour traffic to get back to Melbourne for her morning shift. Nobody ever knew but the two of them.