He was Adam, she was Evelyn. The jokes lived around them.
“Hey, Adam, can I come and visit your garden sometime?”
“Eve, you really shouldn’t be eating that apple.”
“Oh, a snake! Watch out you two!”
And, it’s true that if you looked at them from a distance, they did seem like the perfect couple. Made for the Earth; made for each other. He was tall and handsome, but only from afar. If you looked a little closer, you’d see that his eyes were too close together, his nose a little uneven. His hair never seemed to hang the right way, a frustrating trait that he had learnt, over the years, to live with.
She was no goddess, but pretty in her own way all the same. Her hair and eyes were both brown, her lips a chilli red. Her style was refreshing: skirts and stripy tights, and always a colourful top. She was strongly against black. Reminded her of The Dark Time, that time five years ago that only she knew about.
They were not popular people. He loved the Earth and was often distracted, caught up with the simple way the grass danced in the wind. And no, he was not ‘gay’, as was often the verdict. He simply looked at the world differently to most other humans.
She was attracted to the stars; how they made the dark of the night less powerful, less oppressive. They seemed like a million little torches, guiding her to wherever she wished to go.
“Our Evelyn, her head always in the stars…” Her parents would say, only half joking. It drove her mad every time. What was wrong with loving the sky?
They were polar opposites; and everyone knows that opposites attract.
That’s just the way things are.
They had been together for three years. Their relationship was a sweet one, more of a friendship than anything else. She did the talking, because he was close to mute. After an accident years ago that had badly affected his voice box, the words that came out of him were both limited and painfully high pitched.
Another thing to tease him about.
But he didn’t care. As long as Evelyn was there, her hand tucked around his.
But all that was before it happened.
That was before he killed someone.
