The Same, but Different

Who would have guessed that at this pivotal moment in her life, Cassie would be running? Not her, certainly not her friends. And yet here she was.

Friday evenings had been the same at Cassie’s house for a long, long time. In from work, shoes kicked off, oven turned on, cat fed, ready meal and box set. But a chance meeting on a Friday morning had changed all that.

‘Gosh, I’m so sorry,’ said Cassie. She’d sauntered through her little gate with her face in her phone and her head in the clouds, and barged straight into the only person that happened to be walking along the pavement. Her half-eaten piece of toast wound up on his jacket, clinging there with the help of peanut butter.

‘It’s fine,’ the man said. ‘I happen to love peanut butter.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘Preferably not on my jacket though.’

Once she’d picked off the toast, she set about collecting the things she’d knocked out of his hands. His water bottle was the same design as the one she had poking out of the top of her bag, and his book one she had read just a month before.

The sound of a swinging cat flap had them both looking back towards her door.

‘Oops. I forgot to lock up. I’m always doing that’, said Cassie, dashing up the path, stopping briefly to stroke her cat. The man stroked it too, as it weaved in and out of his legs. ‘Peanut butter on your jacket, cat fur on your trousers. I bet you’re glad you walked past my house today, aren’t you?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve got my own cat at home. She’s moulting too.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Cassandra.’

Cassie burst out laughing. ‘That’s my name! Weird!’

The man laughed too. ‘Yes, suppose it is a bit. It’s the name my niece gave her after I picked the cat up from the sanctuary. Just don’t tell me your cat’s called Damian. Cos that really would be weird!’

He was funny.

‘No! Bluebell. I got her from the sanctuary too. I kind of brought my work home with me.’

‘That’s where I recognise you from,’ said Damian. ‘You introduced me to Cassandra, or Bitsy as she was called then. Said we’d be a perfect match. You were right.’

Cassie frowned, her eyes roaming over his clean-shaven face, taking in his neatly cut mousy hair with a fringe that fell over one of his dark brown eyes.

‘Sorry, I don’t remember. We get so many people coming in.’ Surely she should be able to recall him? He was gentle, handsome, and they must have spent at least an hour together.

‘Oh. Well I obviously didn’t leave much of an impression. Perhaps I should have tried bumping into you!’

The town bell struck 8, at the same time as the number 8 bus came into view at the end of the road.

‘I have to go,’ said Cassie, smiling at him. ‘That’s my bus. It was nice to meet you.’

Damian shifted on his feet and stared at the pavement.

‘Look, Cassandra. Hope this doesn’t seem too….you know… But do you fancy having a drink one night? Down at the Boat House?’

Her favourite pub. ‘Er…yeah, ok. I’d like that.’

And so her Fridays changed. Instead of the ready meal and box set, the next three Fridays were rushing home, shower, quick change, and dinner at the Boat House with Damian.

‘Do you remember him coming in to get a cat?,’ she asked her colleague Lucy one day, showing her a photo. ‘Well I remember a bloke taking Bitsy, about a year or so ago. You dealt with him mostly. Quiet. Beard, longish hair, a bit stocky. Not your type. The guy in this photo looks like that perfect man you described on that silly dating app we signed up for. Sounds like your perfect man too.’

Cassie tapped on her computer keys. ‘Damian Bostock. Same name. Gosh, he’s had a late glow up!’

‘At aged 32, more like an early mid-life crisis,’ said Lucy. ‘In any case, lucky you!’

One Sunday, as she and Damian were cycling along a canal towpath, Cassie almost had to stop to pinch herself. She looked down at the yellow rose tucked in her lapel, and looked up at the man a few metres ahead. He just seemed to instinctively know her. The picnic he’d made had been packed with her favourite snacks. And the rose…her mum always bought Cassie yellow roses to bring some sunshine into her dark kitchen. Not to mention their similar taste

in music, in books, their love of animals. Of course, they were different in some ways. He was organised, tidy, and measured, while Cassie was scatty, impulsive, and passionate. The perfect ying to her yang. If a whirlwind romance was the feeling that she was being swept along at ninety miles an hour with no way of putting the brakes on, then this was it. It was intoxicating, exhilarating.

Yet the first disagreement was bound to come. It had been over something so stupid, too. A simple game of either/or in the garden of the pub.

‘Running or walking?’

‘Walking’.

‘Me too,’ said Cassie.

‘Crisps or chocolate?’

‘Crisps.’ ‘Me too,’ said Cassie.

‘Sudoku or crossword?’

‘Crossword.’

‘Oh, Sudoku every time for me,’ said Cassie.

‘No. Really? I thought you preferred crosswords.’

Damian sat up straight, his face contorted.

‘No. My mum does the crosswords, then gives me her newspaper so I can do the Sudokus,’ she said.

‘How come I didn’t know that?,’ he said quietly, staring straight ahead.

Cassie giggled at his confused expression. ‘Well, why would you? It’s not as if I’m going to do puzzles while I’m with you.’

Damian had sulked for five minutes, giving staccato answers to Cassie’s desperate attempts to snap him out of it. ‘It makes me wonder what else I don’t know about you,’ he said. In the end he’d come round, and Cassie had managed to convince herself that it hadn’t been her fault and put it down to him being tired. Perhaps that’s when she should have realised that this fast-paced ride she was on was hurtling out of her control.

The following Friday, they skipped the pub in favour of a date night at Cassie’s house.

‘Come in!,’ said Cassie.

Damian handed her a bottle of dry white wine. ‘Don’t tell me you prefer red,’ he said with a shy smile.

‘No, white all the way,’ she said, kissing his cheek.

‘Sorry about the other day,’ he said. ‘I was exhausted and over-sensitive. You look lovely, by the way. Yellow really suits you.’

Cassie flushed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

‘I’ll go and get the bottle opener,’ he said, breezing through to the kitchen and opening the second drawer.

‘How did you know it was there?,’ asked Cassie.

He closed the drawer slowly, not looking at her.

‘Intuition,’ he said. ‘And I keep mine in the second drawer too.’

‘Well, you know better than me then. I keep finding things out of place. Must be my Mum tidying up when she comes round.’

‘Bet she hasn’t tidied up that bedroom of yours, has she?’

Cassie frowned. ‘How do you know it’s messy….’

‘Gotcha!,’ said Damian, draping his arms on her shoulders and kissing her cheek. ‘Lucky guess. But I’m right, aren’t I?’

Cassie laughed. ‘Well, yeah, you are. Can’t hide anything from you, can I?’

It was the perfect evening, where the conversation flowed, yet time stood still.

The house was cosy and intimate, and they seized the moment to gallop through the stories of their lives as if it was now or never.

‘So there you go. Everything about me, ever,’ said Damian.

‘I’m sorry you lost your parents so young Damian,’ said Cassie, leaning her head on his chest as he topped up her wine.

‘It was a long time ago, Cass,’ he said, nudging her with his shoulder. ‘Don’t be sad on my behalf. I still have my brother.’

‘But he lives in Australia,’ said Cassie.

He shrugged. ‘So instead I have a lovely cat for my family. She was my obsession before I met you. Speaking of cats, where’s Bluebell?’.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Cassie, still revelling in his casual compliment. ‘My cat is firmly in the doghouse.’

Damian laughed. ‘Why?,’ he asked.

‘Oh, I must have locked the cat flap by mistake, and when I got home from work earlier, Bluebell had completely shredded the newspaper. There was even some of it upstairs. I’d almost completed a really hard Sudoku as well! So I put her out to run off the rest of her energy.’

‘Ok, let me get this straight… You lock the cat flap and trap the cat inside, but leave your front door unlocked so any random stranger can get in? That, Cassie Cooper, is precisely why I love you.’

Cassie felt herself shaking inside, her eyes pricking with tears. She was 28, and it was the first time a man had said that to her. For some reason she felt afraid. Afraid that she’d fallen so hard for a man she’d bumped into four weeks ago, and at the same time afraid that these feelings would stop. But as he kissed her, her face held tenderly between his hands, she knew there was nothing she could do.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she said.

He looked into her eyes. ‘No, let’s wait. I’m not taking advantage of a woman who’s had almost a bottle of wine. Come to mine next Friday. I’ll make it the perfect night.’

‘Sound’s amazing,’ she said.

‘What a gentleman,’ said Lucy on Monday morning. ‘He sounds so romantic.’

Cassie sighed. ‘I know it’s a cliché, but I feel like I’ve known him forever. There’s so many things he seems to know about me that I haven’t told him. Like I knew him in another life. But enough of that… Are you all signed up for the fun run next Saturday?’

‘Yep,’ said Lucy, swinging her feet from behind her desk. ‘Hopefully it should raise a good bit of cash for the sanctuary. I’m bedding in these new trainers, to avoid the horrific blisters I got last year.’

They giggled.

‘I’ll probably walk the course again,’ said Cassie. ‘Fast walking though.’

‘Yes,’ said Lucy, ‘Cassie and running…two things that don’t go together. Like me and diets!’

Ok, so Cassie hated running. But she all but ran round to Damian’s house the following Friday.

‘Come at 6,’ he’d said. ‘I want it to feel like you can stay forever.’

As she made her way through the streets of terraced houses that all looked identical to hers, Cassie inhaled her surroundings. She wanted to remember everything about this evening, from start to finish. Even the journey there, with the late summer breeze delivering a hint of autumn, held the promise of future memories in it. If she passed anyone, if she stopped to cross a road, she couldn’t recall. It seemed like she was walking in a bubble.

It was only fifteen minutes to Damian’s house. He was standing at the door waiting for her to arrive. ‘Hello, Cassie,’ he said as she handed over a bottle of Prosecco.

‘Gosh, your house is just like mine,’ she said.

The gate, the garden with more or less the same flowers, the dark green door, the curtains in the bay window... Not identical, but more than similar, like that distorted version of reality that comes in a dream.

‘Well you’ll be able to make yourself at home then!,’ he said brightly. ‘I’ll go and put the Prosecco on ice… oh, wait a sec, I got you a present.’

He took a yellow silk scarf out of his pocket, and wrapped it delicately around her neck, tying it in a loose knot.

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Cassie, touching the soft material.

He disappeared with the bottle. As Cassie bent down to untie the laces of her trainers, a text message from Lucy popped up on her phone. Just in time too, as she was about to turn it off for the evening.

‘Hey Cass. Have a fab night. All set for the run tomorrow? I found the photo from last year. Look at the state of us!’

Cassie clicked open the photo and chuckled. They did look a sight, all sweaty and dishevelled, but so happy. Then she squinted, enlarging the photo because something had caught her eye in the background. Well, someone. A man with a beard, long hair, standing a metre from Cassie and staring intently at her. It was Damian. Cassie gasped and stood up.

‘Everything ok?’, asked Damian, standing at the opposite end of the passage. Cassie looked at him, trying to keep her expression neutral despite the realisation that the hallway carpet and all the pictures on the walls were more or less the same as hers. The lampshade, the doorstop—nearly identical. And on a small table, a picture of her and Bluebell, a photo that had gone missing from her bedroom. She tried not to show her panic, because he was walking towards her now, his movements perfectly controlled while Cassie’s mind was spinning wildly.

‘Come in, come in,’ he said, his face set in a smile. ‘And close the door. I don’t want Cassandra to escape… Hey, are you ok? You look like someone’s just walked over your grave.’

Damian was right in front of her now, his hands on the scarf as he pulled her toward him. Cassie gulped, then let him kiss her.

‘My Cassie, my obsession,’ he whispered in her ear.

‘Damian…I…’

‘What’s wrong?’, he said, frowning and backing away slightly.

‘I…I’ve left my door unlocked. I was so excited about tonight I just flew out of the house. It’ll be on my mind. I can be there and back in half an hour if I walk quickly.’

Damian put his hands in his pockets and his head down. Cassie held her breath.

‘I’ll time you,’ he said, ‘and if you’re not back in thirty minutes, then I’ll come looking, and I won’t stop until I find you.’

Cassie looked him in the eyes and nodded, her heart breaking for the Damian that she thought she knew, and pounding in fear of the Damian she didn’t. As soon as she was out of the gate, and out of his sight, she picked up speed and ran for her life.