“Saoirse—”
“Let’s just agree right now: you don’t owe me a thing. And I don’t owe you a thing,” she continues furiously. “We were just two stupid kids who were naïve enough to believe we had a shot once.”
She brushes her fallen hair away from her forehead and presses on.
“But you and I are a far cry from the kids we used to be. So let’s stop pretending like we have any real connection to each other. You tried to help me out of some twisted sense of obligation. And I accepted it because, deep down, I’m scared of being alone. But neither one of those reasons are good enough to continue doing whatever the fuck it is we’re doing.”
I take a step around the table towards her, but she backs away immediately.
“Excuse me,” she says abruptly.
Then she starts walking away from me as fast as she possibly can.
She doesn’t look back.
She doesn’t slow down.
I watch her disappear into the mansion, and I stand there, wondering why the fuck I’d thought coming back to Dublin was a good idea.
* * *
Sighing, I leave the table and abandon the veranda for the quiet of the house.
I never make the decision to go there consciously, but I somehow find myself in the library.
I walk over to the lounge chair that Saoirse was standing in front of this morning and slump down.
The champagne hasn’t dulled my raging thoughts at all. If anything, it’s made them worse. Saoirse’s words keep running through my head.
Two stupid kids, naïve enough to believe we had a shot.
I’ve held onto that night for my entire adult life. It’s the only thing that kept me going.
And it turns out she’s buried it as deep as she fucking could.
I’m trying to rifle through my complicated state of mind when I hear the crackle of paper at my side. Frowning, I pull out a notepad that’s been stuffed in the crack between the arm of the chair and the cushion.
I stare at the top page—and I’m amazed to see myself on the paper.
It’s me as I was more than two decades ago.
An innocent child with a face full of possibility, absent of worry or concern or stress.
Just a kid, reaching for something he’s sure he can catch.
She has drawn me.
And she has captured the likeness so perfectly that looking at the image transports me back to that moment in the garden.
With Ma.
And Sean.
Kian had been there, too, just a little avocado in Ma’s belly.
I blink and the memory dissolves.
I take a deep breath and head out of the library.
I need to see Saoirse.