{"id":367,"date":"2020-11-02T22:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T20:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sharonpaine.co.za\/?p=367"},"modified":"2020-11-02T22:00:37","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T20:00:37","slug":"jessica-darling-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharonpaine.co.za\/?p=367","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Darling &#8211; part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The first time that I ever laid eyes on Jess was through her kitchen window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It feels like a life time ago that I was rushing past her window, down the landing of probably the ugliest block of flats in Cape Town. I was barefoot, hand over my nose, trying not to breathe in the stale cigarette stench wafting from #3\u2019s windows. Her flaying arms caught my attention and I stopped for a moment. I then realised that she was dancing, headphones on, lips quivering as she sang along with the music. She looked so beautiful, and so weird. Not one to admit a passing tendency towards voyeurism, I continued my dash towards the stairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I sat down heavily, with a sigh, halfway down the flight of stairs. What an idiot I thought to myself. Me, I was the idiot. I\u2019d only just, very unofficially, moved in with my boyfriend, and here I was hiding in a stairwell. Maybe not so \u201cunofficially\u201d \u2013 I\u2019d given away my bed after all. And my collection of sheep vertebrae. Greg was pretty insistent that he did not want old bones in his home. Fuck I thought. This was the part where I pull myself towards myself and crawl back to the flat to apologise &#8211; I really hate apologising. I could see my parent\u2019s disappointed faces in my mind, wordlessly asking how I\u2019d managed to mess up yet another relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I ran back to Greg\u2019s flat. Sorry, <em>our<\/em> flat. I apologised and made him a cup of tea. Somewhere ingrained into my psyche, tea is a tool of emotional manipulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I didn\u2019t mention the mysterious dancer from #4 to Greg. I did, however, peep into her window whenever I passed by her kitchen window, which was at least twice a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To be continued.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">All photos in the series: <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@brookecagle?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Brooke Cagle<\/a> <\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first time that I ever laid eyes on Jess was through her kitchen window. It feels like a life time ago that I was rushing past her window, down the landing of probably the ugliest block of flats in Cape Town. I was barefoot, hand over my nose, trying not to breathe in the stale cigarette stench wafting from #3\u2019s windows. Her flaying arms caught my attention and I stopped for a moment. I then realised that she was dancing, headphones on, lips quivering as she sang along with the music. She looked so beautiful, and so weird. Not one to admit a passing tendency towards voyeurism, I continued my dash towards the stairs. I sat down heavily, with a sigh, halfway down the flight of stairs. What an idiot I thought to myself. Me, I was the idiot. I\u2019d only just, very unofficially, moved in with my boyfriend, and here I was hiding in a stairwell. Maybe not so \u201cunofficially\u201d \u2013 I\u2019d given away my bed after all. And my collection of sheep vertebrae. Greg was pretty insistent that he did not want old bones in his home. Fuck I thought. This was the part where I pull myself towards myself and crawl back to the flat to apologise &#8211; I really hate apologising. I could see my parent\u2019s disappointed faces in my mind, wordlessly asking how I\u2019d managed to mess up yet another relationship. I ran back to Greg\u2019s flat. Sorry, our flat. I apologised and made him a cup of tea. Somewhere ingrained into my psyche, tea is a tool of emotional manipulation. I didn\u2019t mention the mysterious dancer from #4 to Greg. I did, however, peep into her window whenever I passed by her kitchen window, which was at least twice a day. To be continued. All photos in the series: Brooke Cagle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19],"tags":[24,25],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grown-up-stories","category-writing-challenge","tag-jessica-darling","tag-short-story"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jessica Darling - part 1 - Sharon Paine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first time that I ever laid eyes on Jess was through her kitchen window. 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