This is really happening.
“There’s nothing I can say to convince you to stay?” I ask desperately.
“No.”
“You don’t have to leave,” I say quickly. “You can still be here with us. It doesn’t mean you to have to take over one day.”
Sean cocks his head to the side. “If you’re gonna be the next don, you can’t afford to be so naïve.”
“Fuck you.”
Sean smiles.
It strikes me suddenly that I’ve never seen him smile so much in one conversation. I study his face carefully, noticing the subtle changes that have transformed him in the last few hours.
He looks lighter.
That’s the only way I can describe it.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I say honestly.
Sean puts both his hands on my shoulders. “We will always be brothers,” he says. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“What about Kian?” I ask. “You’re going to leave without saying goodbye?”
Sean’s face falls. “He won’t understand, Cillian.”
“For fuck’s sake, I barely understand.”
Sean sighs deeply. “This is hard for me, too. All my life I’ve been surrounding by you shits. I don’t want to leave you and Kian behind.”
“And yet…”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
I smile, but it feels stiff. “I’ll try and explain it to him.”
“Tell him I’m sorry,” Sean says. “Tell him I love him.”
“You’ll come back right?” I ask. “One day?”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
But he doesn’t meet my gaze as he turns back to his suitcase. He closes it and zips it up before pulling it off the bed.
“Wanna walk me to the bus station?” Sean asks.
“Scared of the dark?” I ask. “Maybe you’re right to leave. No don has ever been quite such a nancy as you are.”
“Asshole,” Sean says, lightly punching me in the arm.
I cover my burgeoning sense of loss with a painfully forced laugh and follow Sean out of his room. He makes a point of stopping and shutting the door decisively behind him.
I swallow the lump in my throat and we walk downstairs.
We’re at the front door when I see a shadow appear at the corner of the passageway that leads to Da’s study.
It’s Ma.