The story sounds like a classic rom-com. Boy meets girl at a party. There are awkward laughs and giddy butterflies. Then, a discovery. It turns out they live on the same street and they’ve grown up mere metres from each other. She is the girl next door; he is smitten. There’s a first kiss. It’s young love.
It may sound like a cliché ripped from the pages of a Hollywood script, but this is actually how Emma met Patrick in 2007.
“I was 19 when I met Patrick at my neighbour’s 21st birthday party, and we realised we’d been living on the same street for basically our whole lives,” explains Emma, who was studying pharmacy at university, while Patrick, then 22, was doing his carpentry apprenticeship. “Pat was very sporty, masculine and tough, but he was also kind and sensitive. I hadn’t had a serious boyfriend before, so it was all really exciting.”
The relationship blossomed on the suburban street they shared. “I’d stay at Patrick’s parents’ house or he’d stay at mine. We had lots of fun and created many memories,” says Emma.
Then, after several years together, the relationship ended on the very same street where it had started out.
“I remember Pat coming over to my house. We had a conversation [about breaking up] and both of us cried. When Pat walked back to his house down the street crying, I ran after him,”
