by Fox, Nicole
I keep my hand extended.
And, after a long pause, she takes it.
Her fingers slip into mine and my hand converges around hers as I pull her up into a sitting position.
At the same time, I lower myself down onto the grass next to her so that we’re face to face.
“Saoirse,” I say softly.
Saying her name is a gift to myself. I’ve intentionally kept it off my lips for the last thirteen years.
She doesn’t smile. Her expression stays stagnant. As though she’s still trying to work out how she feels about seeing me again.
It strikes me that I know next to nothing about her life. Except the fact that she’s married.
My eyes skitter down to her hands instantly. I see no ring, but there is a noticeable indent of one on her ring finger.
She pulls her hands together and tucks them in her lap as though she knows exactly what I’m looking for. Her eyes are trained on a spot in the distance. But I know she’s not interested in the landscape.
She just wants to avoid me.
“You ready to talk?” I ask.
Her eyes swing to mine as though she can’t help it.
“Talk?” she repeats. “What, so we can pick up where we left off?”
I grit my teeth together. “Whose fault might that be?”
And then, boom—there it is. The fire in those sapphire eyes.
“Don’t pretend to know me,” she snaps.
“Right back at you.”
Our knees bump together and she shifts away from me pointedly. I can’t help smiling at that. It’s funny how the years can disappear in those tiny little gestures.
The little giveaways that remind you that, deep down, people mostly stay the same.
“What are you smiling about?”
The girl I knew is still in there. She may have changed some on the outside.
Wilder hair.
Skinnier body.
A lost, haunted smile.
But underneath is the girl from the rooftop. She’s just trapped behind the years we spent apart.
“Just… remembering,” I answer evasively.
Her eyes turn hard. “We were stupid, naïve kids,” she replies. “We had no business being together.”
I don’t betray my emotions. I just regard her calmly, trying to find the chink in her armor.
She’s built up more walls since we last saw each other. There’s an edge to her tone, a sad tilt to her eyes. She’s been through shit.
She’s had a hard life.
She’s having a hard life.
I try and swallow back the deep-rooted need to protect her.
She said it herself: she hasn’t asked for my help.
Though I have a feeling that, when it comes to Saoirse, that’s the only way I can get away with helping her at all.
She’s too proud for anything else.
Except my eyes drop to her arms again, and I notice strange scars snaking up and down her left arm. They form a scissor pattern and encroach right up to her wrist.
I grab her without thinking and twist her hand around so I can see the scars clearly.
“What the fuck is this?”
She rips her hand away from me. “Nothing,” she mumbles.
“Are you fucking serious?” I growl. “That’s not nothing. That’s… ”
I trail off when I catch her expression. She’s fighting back tears, her jaw crunched down hard in an internal struggle to keep her walls from crumbling.
What an endless effort that must take.
To constantly hide your pain.
To constantly have to pretend like everything’s alright even when just waking up each morning is unholy fucking torture.
“You tried to kill yourself?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Saoirse.”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?” I ask.
“Stop saying my name like you know me,” she says as she gets up off the ground.
I have no choice but to get up, too.
“And while we’re at it, stop pretending like we know each other!” she continues. “We haven’t seen or heard from each other for thirteen years, Cillian. And let’s face it—even before then, we didn’t really know each other.”
“I know how you feel about that,” I reply coolly. “You already told me exactly how you felt when I showed up at your door that day.”
She shakes her head, trembling too hard to answer, and looks down at the grass beneath our feet.
“I need to go.”
“Where?” I demand.
“Somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
I tighten my fists at my sides. “Is it really that bad seeing me again?”
She looks back up at me, her eyes still bright with unshed tears. “You have no idea.”
I can only frown as those words linger in the air. Heavy with angst and hurt I can only barely glimpse.
“It’s cold,” Saoirse says abruptly when the moment gets too tense and anguished. “Can we go back to the car?”
I nod, still silent and brooding. We walk back together in silence. The road I’ve chosen is off the beaten track, which is why it’s silent as the grave out here.
We reach the vehicle and slide into our seats.
But when I go try to crank the keys in the ignition, all I get is a puttering, metallic groan.
Then more silence.
“What the fuck?” I growl.
“What’s wrong?”
“The fucking car won’t start.”
“Is this another joke, Cillian?”
I shoot her a glare. “When I make a joke, you’ll fucking laugh. This is serious. The damn thing won’t start.”
She whimpers and rests her head back against the car seat, eyes closed.
Growling in disgust, I grab my phone and dial in Kian’s number.
“We’re sorry,” chimes a robotic voice. “Your call cannot be completed.”
BEEP.
Disconnected.
I check my screen and realize that there’s virtually no reception out here.
“Jesus, why did you take this route?” Saoirse balks.
“Because I assumed the cops would be after us and, silly me, I didn’t want you caught,” I snarl.
She gives me a searching glance and then looks out her window pointedly. “It is beautiful out here,” she says, almost like an afterthought.
“Fuck me.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“Odds of any traffic coming by after sunset are close to nil. We’re gonna have to make it through the night,” I reply. “Then find our way out of here in the morning.”
“We’re gonna stay here all night?” Saoirse asks incredulously.
“Not in the car, obviously.” I glance out the window to the woods lining the perimeter of the meadow. “It’s already fucking cold in here without the engine on. Come on, we can make a fire out there.”
I get out of the car without bothering to look back. A few minutes later, she follows me out onto the grass.
Even the way she slams her door sounds indignant.
“Do you even know how to make a fire out here?” Saoirse asks when she catches up.
I can tell the cold is starting to get to her, but I’m not about to play the gentleman right off the bat.
“Of course I know how to make a fire,” I snap. “What do you take me for?”
She holds up her hands, but continues to follow me. “Where are you going?”
“We need some coverage,” I explain. “Those trees up ahead are perfect. We can make the fire there and no one will see us from the road.”
“Maybe I want people to see us from the road.”
“Hitchhiking is not a good idea.”
“Don’t tell me you’re scared?”
I snort. “I’m not the one who’s scared.”
“Are you implying that I am?” she demands, taking the bait.
“Maybe.”
“Of w
hat?”
“Being alone with me.”
Her expression goes flat, but I know she’s trying to hide how she really feels. I don’t mind so much. I know I’ll crack her eventually.
It may take me a while.
But I’ve always been a patient man.
* * *
It takes me only a few minutes to get the fire blazing. Saoirse watches me the whole time. I can tell she’s impressed, even though she won’t admit it.
The moment the fire’s roaring, she scoots towards it and settles on one of the upturned roots of the tree we’ve chosen.
“Feel better?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I sit down next to her and ignore the side-eye she throws my way.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” I remark once I’ve had my fill of the pregnant silence.
“Excuse me?”
“I did break you out of jail back there,” I point out.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“You came with me.”
“Because I was in a state of delirium!”
“Delirium?”
“Yeah. Delirium. Seeing you again, it was… I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
I laugh scornfully. “You can say all the rubbish you want. I know you’re glad to see me.”
She stares at me in shock.
Then she sighs and relents. “I… Cillian… of course it’s good to see you,” she says softly.
The friction is the air between us seems to calm a little. Saoirse takes a deep breath. Her shoulders relax forward as she hugs herself a little tighter despite the warmth coming from the fire.
“So, what have you been up to the last thirteen years?” I ask casually.
“That’s a loaded question.”
“You gonna answer it, or just avoid me the whole night?”
“How successful do you think I’d be if I chose the latter?” she asks.
I smile thinly. “Not very.”
She nods. “As expected.”
“You want a different question?”
“Sure.”
“What happened to your smile, Saoirse?”
The question takes her off-guard. So much so that she actually looks me full in the face, right in the eye.
And I can see part of the story.
I see the hurt and pain and sadness that’s swallowed up her twenties. I see how hope and excitement and love and laughter have faded into the background of her life.
“Has it been that bad?” I murmur.
The tears are back, swimming across her eyes even as she tries to push them back.
“It hasn’t been easy,” she says quietly.
“I was sure when you insisted on staying that it was for something better.”
Saoirse shakes her head. “I had to stay—”
“For your father?” I interrupt.
“It was more than a matter of his health. It was more than about who would look after him,” she explains. “I was worried for his life.”
I sit and wait for her to continue.
“Tristan Rearden,” she says.
The way she says his name makes me dislike the fucker immediately.
“He is…?”
“My husband.”
“Ah. I knew I didn’t like him.”
She keeps her eyes trained on the fire. “I’ve known him since I was a kid. He’s older than I am and he was… Well, I suppose he had his eye on me since I was a teenager.”
“So he’s a pedophile,” I snap, trying and failing to control my harsh tone.
She doesn’t shy away from the word, though.
In fact, she actually has the gall to offer up an explanation for it. “He never touched me when I was underage.”
“Jesus, Saoirse,” I growl. “You don’t have to act on an instinct in order to qualify for the title. A pedophile is a pedophile whether he touches an underage girl or not. He preyed on you.”
She smiles, but it’s a dark, joyless smile. Twisted and lonely. “He did do that, yes. He still does.”
I glance at her hand again. She has it covered, but I can still see those scars as clear as day.
“Is that why you did that?” I ask, jerking my head towards the evidence.
“What makes you think I did?”
“Saoirse.”
“Cillian,” she retorts.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “Tristan is in the Kinahans’ pocket. One of their dirty cops. He had connections back then. He has more now.”
I wait for her to finish the story, my skin crawling with foreboding.
“He told me that my involvement with you made me a wanted woman, and the only way to save myself and my father…” She gulps, lips trembling, before finishing, “…was to marry him.”
I stare at her in shock.
Thirteen years of wondering why.
And there it is: the truth.
So simple.
So ugly.
“Is that why you turned me away that day?” I ask. “Is that why you said all those things to me?”
She hesitates for a second. “Yes.”
That’s all it takes to unleash a flood of anger in my chest.
“Fuck!” I roar. I hurl a stick into the fire. It sprays furious sparks up into the canopy overhead.
“Cillian!” she cries out. Something about her voice forces me back to calm. “I was eighteen. I was scared and alone and I felt… I feel responsible for my father. I couldn’t risk his life by leaving.”
“So you stayed and married a fucking monster.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
She looks at me with surprise. “And?”
“What kind of husband was he? Is he?”
“The kind you’d expect,” Saoirse says with a shrug. “He was the one that put me in jail. He likes to show me he’s in control.”
“By putting his wife in jail?”
“I mean, it is the first time he’s done this exact thing,” she admits. “But then, this is the first time I’ve run.”
I stop short. “You… ran?”
She nods, pointedly avoiding my eyes this time.
“About a year ago, I reached a breaking point,” she says without actually giving me details. “I… I decided I was done. I needed to leave. I wanted to be free. So I put aside money, made plans for Da. And yesterday morning, I was planning on leaving Ireland for good.”
I feel my chest tighten as a realization hits me square in the chest.
“That was you,” I breathe. “Yesterday, outside the airport… That was you.”
She nods slowly. “Yes, it was me.”
“You saw me?”
“Of course,” Saoirse replies as if it was always meant to be that way. Her tone is achingly sad.
All I want to do is touch her, comfort her.
But she doesn’t want that. And I still don’t know how to bridge this gulf between us.
“I’ve been seeing you for the last thirteen years, Cillian,” she murmurs without looking at me. “Every time a man with blond hair walks past, I see you. Then I blink and you’re gone again.”
Unable to resist any longer, I reach out and put my hand over hers.
She freezes, but she doesn’t push me away, either.
“You think you’re the only one seeing ghosts?” I admonish softly. “Saoirse, it was too painful thinking about you. It was too painful imagining you or talking about you.”
My chest tightens and my tongue feels awkward and heavy. But I push on.
Some things have to be said.
“So I didn’t. I pushed you to the back of my mind and kept you there in an attempt to salvage the remnants of my heart. But you were always there, just a thought away. You never left.”
“Was I?” she asks uncertainly.
“Look at me,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t lie about this.”
Her eyes soften a little, but her walls are still up. Higher than I can climb.
“That one night with you got me through the last thirteen years, Cillian.”
My body floods with inexplicable warmth.
“Maybe that’s why we found each other when we did,” she ponders. “Maybe that’s what that night was about. I used to think it was my way out. That you were my way out. But that’s not true.”
Her face is half in shadow, half in firelight. She looks unspeakably beautiful.
But her eyes… she’s not seeing the glow of our one night together the way I’ve spent thirteen years seeing it.
All she’s seeing is the nightmare that followed.
“We were never meant to live happily ever after,” she presses on. “We were kids. And now, we’re strangers. There’s no fairytale ending here. We’ll always have that night. But it’s just that: just one night. And it happened a long, long time ago. There’s no such thing as getting it back.”
34
Saoirse
He’s gotten better about hiding his feelings.
Or maybe he just never had a reason to before.
It’s not like I have a stockpile of memories of Cillian to file through. It’s not like I have a legion of shared moments to dissect and study.
One night.
That’s all I have.
And for some reason, I’m desperate to protect it.
Even from him.
Maybe even especially from him.
But fuck, does he have to look so goddamn beautiful right now?
All I want to do right now is run my fingers through those beautiful golden locks. I used to imagine a little child with hair like that. A child with the same carefree smile as Cillian’s.
And a little bit of me in him or her, too. A reddish tinge to the hair, a wry twist in the grin.
A child of ours.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the old fantasy.
I stopped dreaming about children a long time ago. Around the same time I secretly got on birth control so that I’d never have to carry a baby with the same DNA as Tristan.
But when I did dream, there was only ever one man who I could see fathering my children.
And that’s exactly the reason I need to stay away from Cillian O’Sullivan.
Because no matter which way I come at it, there’s no realistic route in which we can be together.
In whatever future I see, Tristan’s shadow looms over us. The monster in my nightmares.
