by Sienna Blake
“Dublin College of Music, Mr Craven,” admonished another female voice I recognised as Mrs Prim. “I abhor the shortening of the name.”
Rickie reacted with a chuckle. “As you probably guessed, Ms Kavanagh,” he said to me, “you’re on speakerphone.”
“Yes, right, hello,” I said, my lungs feeling like they were seizing. My legs were so jittery with nerves that I began to hop on the spot, making Eileen, one of my younger sisters, lift one perfectly arched brow as she sat at the kitchen table eating cereal in hot milk.
Mrs Prim spoke. “We wanted to let you know that we’ve made a decision on the student who will be awarded the exchange scholarship position…”
Oh dear God, please let it be me. Please please please. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed.
“Your guitar playing is good but it’s your voice that blew us away,” Rickie said. “We see a lot of potential in you.”
“Even though you didn’t quite stick to the brief,” Mrs Prim interjected.
“She did indeed stick to your bleedin’ brief,” argued Rickie, “but she was the only one who went above and beyond. She arranged that song herself, didn’t you, honey?”
He noticed. He appreciated what I had done.
I nodded, before I realised they couldn’t see me. “Y-Yes, sir, Mr Craven.”
He chuckled again, a warm rolling noise that made me like him even more. “Please, call me Rickie. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other.”
Wait…see more of me? Did that mean…?
“Despite all of this,” Mrs Prim cut in, “we would like to award you the scholarship position, if you still want it.”
I froze just for a second.
Then I screamed, jumping up and down like I’d won the lottery.
“Ms Kavanagh?” Mrs Prim’s startled voice cut through the noise.
I slapped my hand over my mouth.
Oh shit. I had actually screamed out loud. I earned a second eyebrow lift from Eileen.
I pulled my hand away from my mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” tumbled out. “I’m just so excited, I can’t believe it. Thank you so much. Yes, of course I’ll accept, yes.”
“Looking forward to having you in the college, Ms Kavanagh,” Rickie’s warm voice said through the phone.
“Thank you, sir, me too.”
“We are a very strict school, Ms Kavanagh,” Mrs Prim cut in. “We have the highest reputation, not just for our music talent, but for the morals and behaviour of our students.”
I wasn’t sure what they expected of me. That I was some kind of raging partier who drank, smoked and did drugs?
Hardly.
I was in bed most nights by ten p.m.
I never smoked a cigarette in my life so as not to harm my voice. And I rarely drank. Only tried pot once and hated it.
Mrs Prim continued, “I trust I won’t find you carrying on like that in class or otherwise. Is that clear?”
“I promise you I will be the model of an upstanding student. I won’t let you down.”
6
____________
Ailis
Then – Dublin, Ireland
“A song for your thoughts,” I said to Danny as he sat up against the pillow, me against his side, my head on his chest.
“Just thinking about my ma.”
I’d gotten to know Danny’s mother over these last few weeks, going into her room down the hall when I felt well enough to, sitting in a chair at the side of her bed, Danny at her side between us, while she regaled us with stories from her life.
Casey O’Donaghue was a beautiful woman, the same blue eyes as Danny but with long blonde hair like a fairy. Danny got his midnight-black hair from his father. I think his name was Dillan. Danny didn’t like to talk about him much.
Today, I wasn’t feeling so great. That’s why Danny was here.
“How is she?” I asked.
Danny nodded, a determined look on his face. “Good. She’s doing good. She’s going to get through this.”
I smiled, even though my lip trembled. “Of course she is.”
I let out a sob, my panic swollen for so long that I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I pushed my face into his chest to muffle it.
“What’s wrong?” Danny cried in alarm.
“I d-don’t want to die.”
Not yet. Not now. Not before I’d had a chance to live. To graduate school. To go to the debs ball with a boy. To have my first kiss…
Unfairness tasted bitter on my tongue.
Danny gripped me tighter and hissed into my hair. “You are not going to die.”
I shook my head against his chest, my tears staining his black t-shirt. “I heard them. They didn’t think I could hear them but… They don’t know I know.”
His fingers flinched, digging into me so hard that it bordered on painful. But I didn’t protest. If anything, the feeling anchored me. I was here. I was alive. For now.
It was so hard to keep my sorrow from my parents. But I did. I pretended I didn’t know I was going to die. I had to be strong for them. To be strong for my sisters. They were already going through so much. Danny was the only one I could let go around. He was the only one strong enough to hold me together while I fell apart. And fall apart I did. I sobbed into his chest, my lungs heaving, soul shrieking so hard my ears rang with it.
Danny gripped my chin and lifted my face, forcing me to look at him.
His eyes flared with fury so hot it was as blue as the centre of a flame. “You are not going to die. You hear me? I won’t let you.”
He crushed his lips to mine, startling me. I stopped crying. I stopped breathing. In fact, everything stopped.
Stilled.
Quieted to a peace I’d only ever experienced when lost in a song.
His lips were soft but firm. He tasted like apple juice. Smelled like soap and boy.
I forgot.
I forgot I was sick.
I forgot I was going to die.
I forgot that my world was going to end soon.
Because right then, with his lips on mine, with his hand sliding around my cheek to cup my face—he was my world. He held me like a globe in his hands, against his mouth. He sucked out the sadness from my marrow and breathed in hope.
Perhaps if heaven felt like this, if angels felt like him, it wouldn’t be so bad to die.
7
____________
Danny
“Oh, look at those two.”
I came to awareness in the tiny hospital bed in the dim, half asleep, half aware of two figures standing in the doorway, careful not to move so not to wake Ailis, lying in my arms.
“He shouldn’t be there,” one of them said.
“No, don’t wake him up.”
“Roz—”
“What harm is it if we leave them? He’s been sleeping in one of the spare beds anyway. His ma’s sick and she’s got no one to look after him.”
“What happens when she—”
“Shhh, don’t say such things. We can always pray for a miracle.”
“Aye, a miracle we’ll pray for. For his sake, poor little tyke.”
I hadn’t realised then exactly what they’d been speaking about. I should have known, though. I should have known that my ma had been keeping things from me to make sure that I wouldn’t worry. At least not yet.
The figures retreated and the door closed with a soft click. I looked down to the tiny angel against my body.
In the darkness, with Ailis’s fragile body tucked against mine, her head on my chest, her soul needing mine, I felt powerful. Purposeful.
I curled my arm tighter around her shoulders and she mumbled, then sighed happily in her sleep.
With me here nothing could touch her.
She was mine.
My girl.
I would not let her go.
I squeezed my eyes shut and sent up a prayer to God or whoever was listening. A prayer that would later destroy everything.
8
>
____________
Ailis
Now – Dublin, Ireland
My first day at the Dublin College of Music and I was late.
God, this better not become a habit.
I hitched my old backpack further onto my shoulder and looked both ways before dashing across the road to the college, dodging groups of Spanish tourists who only ever seemed to move around like melting treacle.
After I got the call last week about starting here, it was a mad rush to find a room to rent and to pack all the things I needed from my childhood home. Luckily, Anna, a girl I knew from choir back in Limerick, had a spare room after her old flatmate dropped out just before final year.
I couldn’t imagine why anyone would quit so close to the end. The final year at DCM was when the magic happened, where teachers started putting forward students for special industry projects, where famous musicians came in to teach workshops and impart their wisdom, where talent scouts came to watch the end-of-year concert and maybe, just maybe, make someone’s dreams come true.
My parents had been happy for me but sad that I was finally leaving home. My ma burst into tears practically every mile or so on the drive from Adere, our village near Limerick, to my new apartment in Dublin, a ten-minute walk from college.
Anna was waiting for me on the sidewalk with a grin, the front door to my new building chocked open with a bit of wood. My parents were at least somewhat mollified at the thought that I would be here with someone they knew from home.
“Oh, I can’t believe you’re really leaving us,” my ma said as she clutched onto me after we unpacked the car of my meagre belongings. Her strawberry-blonde hair, same as mine, was in my face, her powdery perfume and the scent of lemons sucking into my lungs and making me miss home already.
“Oh, Ma,” I said with embarrassment, even though there were the pricks of tears in my eyes. “It’s not like I’ve left the country. I’ll definitely be back home for Christmas.” Which was less than four months away with the first term starting now in September.
My ma pulled away, still clutching my upper arms. I looked into her tear-streaked face—my face, except two decades older, soft wrinkles around her moss-green eyes.
“You know you can come home every weekend,” she said. “And you better call every day.”
If I hadn’t secretly loved her neediness, I would have rolled my eyes.
“I’ll be busy with class and assignments, Ma. I’ll call you at least once a week. And come home when I can. Promise.”
My da stepped forward and I straightened.
My father had always been a stoic man, tall, broad-shouldered, salt-and-pepper hair. He was a fifth-generation cattle farmer, a man of action rather than words. A man of silent approval rather than showy affection.
I nodded at him. “Goodbye, Da. Thanks again for driving me here.”
He grabbed me and crushed me against him in a hug.
“I’m proud of you, girl,” my da whispered. “Knock ’em dead.”
“I will, Da. I will.”
Dammit, now I was crying. I leaned into him, trying to capture the earthy scent of him, the hint of hay bales that seemed to cling to his skin no matter how many times he showered. I was homesick already.
That had been last week. Since then, I’d spent a whirlwind of days drinking coffee and walking around with Anna, who’d been super keen to show me around the neighbourhood.
The DCM campus was in the Christchurch area, positioned near the centre of town on the southside of Dublin, a mixture of gorgeous gothic and medieval stone buildings, a forty-three metre spire reaching to the heavens of the main front building.
I pushed my way into the main building to get out of the wind and paused inside against one of the marble pillars. I had no idea where I was going.
I scrambled around in the pockets of my backpack, trying to find the schedule and map I’d printed out. Great. Found the schedule.
My first class was Modern and Commercial Vocals in the Bono building. Cute. It appeared the buildings were named after famous Irish musicians. Now to find the Bono building.
Where was my map? No map. Dammit, I must have left it back at the apartment. I’d have to be a complete newbie and ask someone. I looked up, tossing my backpack back on my shoulders. Only to have the wind knocked out of me, figuratively.
There he was. Again.
Danny O’Donaghue, striding through the hall like he owned the place, students jumping or staggering out of his way, craning their necks as he passed. His long, thin black overcoat flaring around his ankles dramatically. The few daring to approach with a pad and pen, ready for his signature, were dispatched by the trademark glare fixed on his beautiful face, his blue eyes like lasers scanning the halls.
I gasped and ducked behind the pillar, getting a strange look from a passing student. What the hell was he doing here?
I peered around the pillar and spotted Danny pushing his way out of a set of doors.
Before I knew what I was doing, I ran after him, class forgotten.
The cool air stung my cheeks as I tumbled out into the grassy courtyard, tree-lined paths that wound left and right between more stone buildings. September in Dublin was already cooling and we’d had a cold snap these last few days.
My eyes drew to Danny’s wide figure like they were magentised to him. I followed his route along a stone path, having to walk damn fast to keep up with his long, sure strides, my eyes glued to his cocky swagger.
What was he doing here? He must be here seeing someone. Rickie, his old mentor, I guessed.
Even more importantly, what the fuck are you doing, Ailis? You should be in class. Not stalking your ex-best friend.
Not stalking. Just curious. I just wanted to see where he was going. That’s all. No harm, no foul. It’s not like I was going to approach to him or anything. Besides, this was my school. I had a right to be walking where I liked.
What if he turns around and sees you?
He wouldn’t. He was too focused on wherever he was headed. That was Danny; deadly focused. Not that he’d remember me, if he did see me. Right?
He disappeared between two stone buildings. My heart gave out a little kick as I lost sight of him. I turned the corner and—
Bam.
I ran straight into a hard wall of muscle. A hard wall of muscle who smelled like a lethal combination of spicy cologne and man.
Oh. Fuck.
I lifted my eyes, over his black jeans—oh my God, don’t look at his bulge—up his fitted black jumper he wore under his open coat, hinting at the hard body underneath, to the smooth skin of his neck, wide plains of his clenched jaw, darkened with stubble, right into the most brilliant blue eyes I’d ever seen, dark brows furrowed over them, making them seem like two icy pools deep within two caverns.
My heart became a cacophony of drums, my mind a clatter of cymbals. He was so beautiful. Like he was chiseled out of marble.
He no longer painted his fingernails black or wore his hair shaggy over his collarbone. This was a mature Danny, a more sophisticated Danny.
A dangerous Danny.
One that could bring me to my knees if I let him. One that could do more than just break my heart. This Danny could annihilate me.
His eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed even further. “What are you doing here, Dearg?”
Dearg. With his accent he pronounced it Dar-rig.
Irish for Red.
Damn him for using his old nickname for me.
At least he remembers you, my heart trilled.
Shut up, stupid heart.
“Do you speak?” he demanded. “Or have the years rendered you mute?”
“Student,” I blurted out. Fuck, why was I so tongue-tied? “I am one, I mean. Here.”
“Really?” He sounded utterly disbelieving.
“Yes, really,” I defended in a snappy voice that sounded more like the one I had cultivated over the years.
His gaze trailed over me like liquid fire, over all o
f me, unselfconsciously over the mustard-yellow sweater tight across my breasts, down my stomach and legs. I squirmed in my boots and felt dampness growing between my thighs under my navy-blue skirt teamed with tights. Oh fuck. What was that?
His frown just deepened, an angry twitch developing in his chiseled jaw. He critiqued me and found me lacking, obviously.
Still, all I wanted to do was to lean in closer, to swallow all his moody waters and drown with him.
His stare snapped back to my eyes. Once again I was hit with the full force of his glare, the full weight of his displeasure.
“I’m surprised they let you in.”
His words hit me like a cross-jab, causing bruises on my soul.
“P.S.” He leaned in, a smirk on his lips, making him look like the actor James Dean out of the movie Rebel Without a Cause. He just needed a cigarette. “What the hell are you wearing?”
There was the knockout punch.
He pushed away from me, flicking his hair from his forehead, looking every single bit the hottest up-and-coming music sensation rock star that he was.
He strode past me, knocking my shoulder with his as he went. Not looking back once.
Asshole.
Beautiful asshole. My heart tugged. Beautiful asshole who saved me once.
I hope I never ever ever see him again.
That was a lie, despite the way he just treated me.
I wanted to see him again. I wanted to burrow into his life and under his skin like he had mine.
Even after all these years.
For once, I wanted to play him and for him to lose.
I wanted him to be the one who hurt.
9
____________
Danny
Ailis Kavanagh.
I’d never admit it out aloud, but I thought about her more than I should have in the years since I graduated from high school.
Tinged with nostalgia.
Coated in sadness.
Above all…soaked in regret.
All things I had no damn business feeling.
