He reaches for my hand. “I know, believe me, I do. I spent years wishing I’d never given him that tab. That I’d listened to him when he said he felt ill. Sometimes I still dream about him.”
There’s no need for him to tell me they’re nightmares, because I know they are. The same terrible images that flicker through my own dormant mind; the party, the music, the dancing. The feeling that we could rule the world with love and peace. The way we ignored what was happening in front of our zoned-out eyes.
Digby wasn’t hot or thirsty. He wasn’t just shooting the breeze with us. While we danced our way through the night, high on E and God only knew what else, he was dying. He stumbled through the crowd, maybe clutching his chest, his heart fighting against the effects of MDMA. Losing spectacularly. We were his friends, we let him down. We let him die on a muddy, grass-covered field all alone.
While we danced.
That knowledge is so much worse than the clusterfuck that happened afterward. The investigations and the media frenzy, followed by the unseemly influence of his parents’ money. The fact we bore all of the blame for his death in the eyes of the press and the university seemed like karma.
“Beth?” Niall squeezes my hand softly. I squeeze back, swallowing down the bile that’s collected in my throat.
“We’d best get on with dinner; we don’t want to starve your mum.” I start chopping tomatoes, slicing the sharp knife through their rosy skins. But he doesn’t move, though; simply stands and stares at me until I’m embarrassed enough to stop.
“You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”
“Chopping tomatoes?”
“Avoidance. You even have this tone you use when you change the subject. Breezy and chipper, as if it’s your job to cheer everybody up.”
The impact of his words is so strong it almost hurts. It’s as if he can see right through my bullshit and understands who I am underneath. As though he wants to break through the shell I’ve carefully built around myself; the pretty one I show to the rest of the world.
If he does, I’m scared he’s going to find something rotten underneath.
* * *
I think I’m falling in love with Niall’s mother. Maureen is a one-woman ball of energy, a force of nature that has no half-life. She spends most of the evening taking good-natured jibes at Niall which he happily endures, and I sit and let their mutual love envelop me like a soft, warm blanket. I’ve managed to shake off my earlier angst enough to join in her teasing about Niall’s general messiness. He protests loudly when I tell her he’s been cleaning the flat all week.
When he disappears to the bathroom, she turns in her chair and smiles at me. “How long have you and Niall known each other?” She glances at my left hand, and I know she’s looking at my wedding ring.
“He started volunteering at the clinic a couple of months ago, but I knew him before. At university.” Her eyes cloud over when I say the words.
“You were there when that poor wee boy died?”
I nod.
“Such a tragedy.” She shakes her head slowly. “And everything that happened afterward, too. Did you hear Niall was thrown out?”
I swallow hard and glance at the door to the hallway. Unsure how much I should tell her, or how much Niall would want me to say. But I’ve seen them interact enough to know she doesn’t judge, not unless she’s making a joke. If pure love exists, then these two have it in spades.
“I was thrown out, too,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen as realisation seems to wash over her. “You’re the girl...” she breathes. “The one he left behind.”
My voice is thick when I answer her. “That was me.”
She looks at my ring once more, before her eyes flicker up to meet mine. “I know Niall looks tough, but he’s sensitive underneath it all. He had such a hard time dealing with everything that happened. When I flew into town yesterday, it was like he was really alive again, that he was letting himself be happy for the first time in years.” She catches my gaze and I feel like I’m being scrutinised. “My son adored you once, Beth. Don’t make him fall in love with you again.”
My chest constricts until I can barely breathe. “We’re just friends,” I manage to whisper.
“His eyes follow you around the room whenever he thinks you aren’t looking. When he talks to you there’s this gentleness to his voice I haven’t heard in years. I’m old but I’m not blind. I can see the way you both look at each other.”
I take a big mouthful of wine and consider her words. Remembering the way he waited for hours outside the police station. How he always hangs around after class and helps me clear up.
Oh, God.
“He’s worked so hard to get over everything that happened,” she says. “Please don’t break his heart all over again.”
The campus is dark and mostly deserted. People are either home, in halls, or cozied up in one of the many bars dotted around the university. We pass the occasional runner and a few groups of students walking home from the pub, but for the most part it’s just the two of us.