Tonight’s spot was a darkening skyline, an empty field and spiky grass on their bottoms. They had forgotten a blanket, or rather they intentionally didn’t bring a blanket for fear somebody would notice their plan and follow them. They always wished to be alone on these special occasions.
The sunset had been and gone in its deep orange glory and they had both captured it on their phones, purposefully not capturing an image of the two of them gazing into it and ensuring that they posted the pictures online at very different times. They felt a sunset post on Instagram looks far less suspicious than a selfie of the two of them, plainly stating their actions, but the memory of a wonderful time would still be there, captured on their phones.
‘Come on, Daz, we really should get going,’ said Lisa, noticing the dark and pre-empting the questions that she would receive on her return home.
‘Please. One moment more.’
Once again Darren’s authority had won her over and she remained seated for half an hour longer than she would have done if on her own.
Lisa had always been such an independent individual and never relied much on anyone else. Throughout her education she was thoroughly organised and depended only on herself for answers. She had a perfected morning routine from the age of ten which included making her own breakfast, her own lunch and her parents a cup of tea each, just the way they liked it. This ritual wasn’t even instigated by her parents because by the time she reached the age when they would have encouraged independence she already had so much so didn’t need their guidance.
When she started her first job, she never relied on her mother to wake her in the morning and in fact most of the time she was doing the wake-up rounds and getting her parents ready for the day.
She couldn’t understand when she went to university how some of her friends had a selection of meals made by their parents and stored in the freezer so all they had to do was microwave them each night. One of her friends’ mothers went as far as labelling each meal with which day of the week it needed to be consumed on, removing any need for thought there too. She couldn’t understand how people had got to the age of eighteen and didn’t know how to boil an egg. Nor did she see why they needed their mothers to ring them on the morning of an exam to check that they were awake in time. It was a different world and totally bizarre to the one she inhabited. Despite her advanced self-government skills, she was weak when it came to Darren.