“I can’t leave Ireland, Saoirse,” he says. “Not again.”
My heart is beating hard against my chest, but I need to hear his explanation. And he deserves my attention.
“All this time, I’ve been lying to myself,” Cillian explains. “Telling myself that I was happy to be away from all this. Away from my family, my business, my home.”
I don’t say a word. I hardly dare to breathe too loud.
“But if that were true, I wouldn’t have found the exact same life in another country. I left Dublin because I was forced to. Not because I wanted to. It took coming back here to make me realize it.”
He pauses. The forest murmurs around us. Birds and branches and a little stream flowing somewhere unseen.
“I’ve missed the land, Saoirse. I’ve missed my brother. Hell, I even missed my parents. I told myself that this was just about making amends and then going back to America. But that was the lie I needed to tell myself in order to get on that plane in the first place.”
I listen intently, feeling him draw closer and closer to me. His hand lands on my arm and I pivot on the spot.
He’s looking at me as though begging me to understand.
He has history here. A past he treasures and memories he wouldn’t give up for the world.
He’d been forced out the first time and I had unknowingly asked the exact same thing from him. I had asked him to leave when he wasn’t ready to go.
“This is my home,” he says again softly. “Home.” He says the word like it’s holy.
I give him a tentative smile that doesn’t quite manage to hide the sadness I’m feeling. “I understand, Cillian,” I say. “Of course I do.”
This really is his home.
The scary part for me, though… is the realization that he may be mine.
“Do you?” he asks.
“Yes.”
And I do understand. I really do. It’s just not the answer I wanted to hear.
Cillian may have a future in Ireland.
But where’s mine?
I can’t have a future that’s anywhere close to where Tristan still draws breath. The man will hunt me down and scrape the happiness from my soul if he could.
That angry, bitter nagging voice inside my head screams at me. You should have left with him the first time. It’s too late now. The window is closed.
He reaches up and cups my face with his hand. I can feel the hard calluses of his palm, but despite their roughness, I press my cheek into him.
Then I turn my lips into his palm and kiss it gently.
When I turn my eyes to his, there’s a spark in them that has driven all the calm right out.
“I thought about you a lot when I was gone,” he confesses softly.
“I thought about you a lot, too.”
“Did you ever regret it?” he asks. “Not coming with me?”
My breath hitches up a little. I’ve been a coward too long now.
It’s time to be brave. And bravery always starts with the truth.