by L.H. Cosway
I turned and he gazed down at me, his expression full of warmth, full of empathy. And guilt. His guilt was misplaced, but I didn’t know how to stop him from feeling it.
“Yes, I just need some rest,” I replied quietly.
“Can I come with you?”
In this eyes, I saw how much he needed me, so I nodded, and we continued to my flat. Once there, I went into my bedroom and Dylan followed. I stood by my bed and looked at him, still so injured. I wondered what it was like to grieve while your body was in so much physical pain at the same time.
His dark blue gaze held mine, communicated a depth I wasn’t sure we could ever put into words. I stepped forward and carefully undressed him. I slid his blazer down his shoulders, unbuttoned his shirt. I carefully peeled away each layer until I saw his bruised and battered body.
When I was done, Dylan watched while I slid off my dress, until I stood in only my underwear. I stepped in front of him, kissed one of his cheeks and then the other. I kissed his neck and his collarbone, his breastplate and the white gauze around his ribs. I ran my fingers along the cast on his arm and pressed my lips to the stitches at his forehead. All the while, he seemed to hold his breath.
“You were right,” I whispered.
He stared down at me. “About what?”
“About this place. It did turn me hard, only it happened a lot sooner than you predicted.”
“That’s not true. You just feel that way because you’re grieving.”
I shook my head. “Losing Sam opened my eyes to everything you’ve been trying to tell me all along. This place is horrible, and it’s full of horrible people. If we didn’t live here, you wouldn’t have bullies coming after you. There wouldn’t be people who are so empty inside that the only way for them to feel anything is to beat a person until they aren’t a person anymore.”
I paused and tears streamed down my face. “If we didn’t live here, Dylan, Sam would still be alive. That’s someone I’ll think about every day for the rest of my life.”
Dylan ran a hand down his face. In his expression, I saw his regret, saw how he wished he’d never opened my eyes to the lowliness of our existence. His regret was pointless, of course, because I would’ve found out for myself anyway. I just would’ve been less prepared.
He pulled me to him and hugged me tight. He knew there was nothing he could say to make it better, nothing he could do to take back all the things he’d been trying to make me understand this whole time.
The world could be ugly or beautiful, depending on where you found yourself. You could create a little beauty in an ugly place, but in the end, the ugliness would eat it up.
That’s what happened to Sam.
And that’s what was happening to me.
There was a crack in me now, and someday it was going to expand and swallow me whole.
Dylan laid me down on the bed, pulled the covers over our bodies, and kissed me until my lips were sore. He kissed every inch of me, temporarily easing a small piece of the pain. I repaid him in kind, trying to memorise how he gasped in pleasure, how handsome he looked when he gazed at me with love. I did it because soon he’d be gone, and these memories would be all I had left.
I woke up early the next morning to movement. Dylan stood at the foot of my bed, awkwardly trying to dress himself.
“You’re going,” I said, a statement, not a question.
Dylan nodded. “I have a check-up at the hospital, and then I have to visit the passport office.”
“Oh,” I said, sitting up and pulling the covers around me. All of a sudden, I felt so cold.
Dylan stared at me a long moment. “You’re not coming with me, are you?”
I shook my head sadly, my voice no more than a whisper. “No. I’m sorry.”
His expression was tender yet fierce. “Don’t be. Life’s too short to live in regret, Ev. I want you to come with me because I’m selfish, but you need to do what’s best for you. And if that means staying here and finishing school, taking care of your gran, then that’s what you need to do.”
The way he said it, so full of compassion and love, made another piece of my already broken heart break off. I got out of bed, stood before him and placed my hands on each of his shoulders.
“You’re going to thrive out there, do you know that?” I said, sniffling.
“I’m going try my best,” he replied, eyes searching mine.
“You won’t try, you’ll do. I know you will.”
“I’ll miss you,” he said, a catch in his voice. Those three little words held all the emotion of a hundred lifetimes, and we were both in danger of drowning under the weight of them.
“I’ll miss you, too,” I croaked and pulled him into a hug. Tears streamed down my face. I’d cried so much these last few days, I was surprised there were any more left in me.
“And don’t you ever come back here,” I said, squeezing him tight. “If you do I’ll never speak to you again.”
He didn’t comment on the irony of my words. Instead he pulled back to look at me, his expression thoughtful. “This isn’t the end for us. I promise. This is just the in-between. I’ll find you in the after.”
Something in me hoped it was true, because it made it easier to accept him leaving. But another part of me said it was wishful thinking, just my heart clouding my head with foolish notions. Sure, we could try to reconnect, try to stay in touch, but what was the point when I was never leaving this place? I’d only drag him down, and he deserved to fly high.
When I finally let go, I wiped away my tears and mustered a smile just for him.
“Then I’ll see you in the after.”
Book Two Excerpt
The story continues in book #2, How the Light Gets In. Read on for chapter one…
Chapter 1
How the Light Gets In
Eleven years later
Manhattan, New York City, 2017
“Ms. Jackson” by OutKast pumped in my ears.
I bobbed my head as I mixed a cosmo, while my co-worker, Danni, shot me a grin from the other end of the bar. The crowds pulsated on the dance floor and hands clutching crumpled bills vied for my attention.
It was just another Saturday at FEST, the nightclub my aunt Yvonne managed. I’d been working here for two months, ever since I moved from Dublin to New York, and I had to say, even if the work was exhausting, the tips were phenomenal. You didn’t get tips like these in Ireland.
Not unless you worked at a strip club.
And I wasn’t talking about mixing drinks at the bar of said strip club.
There was also an energy to this city I hadn’t anticipated. It really didn’t sleep. There always seemed to be something happening. Any hour of the day or night you could find a comedy gig, or an interactive theatre show, or even a doga class. That’s right, yoga for dogs. Whatever floated your boat, you could find it here.
I never expected to end up in a place like this. In all honesty, I thought I’d stay in Dublin forever. Like, forever-ever. When you lived from pay check to pay check, life came with its limitations. But then Yvonne offered to set me up with a job, not to mention let me stay in her apartment. How could I say no to that?
When Gran was still alive, I would’ve flat-out declined, but she passed away last year. I didn’t have anything to stay put for anymore, and it was an odd feeling. For so long I had an excuse not to leave, then I had none.
So I took the leap.
“What’s your name, gorgeous?” a suit asked from the other side of the bar. The first few buttons of his shirt were undone, his tie loose and his grin even looser.
“Name’s Evelyn, what can I get you?” I replied, professional smile in place. I wasn’t a big fan of being hit on by punters, but such was life when you worked a bar. Some nights I wondered if I should take one home, let them warm my bed for a while, but I always thought better of it. I wasn’t made for one-night stands. Mostly because I fell in love too easily. A charming smile and a well-placed compliment and I was hand
ing over the keys.
During most of my twenties, my misguided, empty heart constantly looked for a person to fill it. Now I was coming to learn that the only one who could repair my heart was me. I had to find happiness within myself before I found it with someone else.
I wasn’t there yet, but I was working on it.
“I love your accent. I’ll take a whiskey sour, on the rocks. Don’t think I’ve seen you here before. You new?”
I nodded as I put his drink together and did my best to be heard over the music. “Yeah, been here a couple of weeks.”
“Really? Do you like New York?”
“Yeah. It’s a great place to live. Expensive, but great.”
“Well, if you ever need anyone to show you around, give me a call,” he said and handed me a business card. I took it without even looking at the name and slipped it in my pocket to dispose of later.
“Sure. That’ll be eleven dollars,” I replied and handed him his drink.
He took a sip, slid me a twenty, then disappeared back into the fray of the nightclub.
“That accent of yours gets all the best tips,” Danni said, an annoyed slant to her mouth.
“That’s just because nobody can tell where I’m from. I’m ninety-nine per cent convinced all Americans think Irish people talk like Leprechauns.”
Danni chuckled. “Don’t be so xenophobic.”
“You’re the xenophobic ones.”
“You’re both goddamn xenophobic,” said Ger, the third bartender on shift tonight. “Now get back to work. I’m drowning here.”
I shot him an apologetic look and hustled to take more drink orders. By the time my shift was done, I was ready to keel over and expire, but again, I loved it. I loved the electricity of the city, the never-ending customers at the bar, the loud, deafening music, and the sheer exhaustion you felt at the end.
You could say positivity was my New Year’s resolution. Whatever my situation in life, I was determined to make the best of it. When I was young, cheeriness was my default setting, but then life had its way with me.
After I lost Sam I could never see the sun, even when it was beaming in the sky.
Now my goal was to leave the darkness behind.
It’s what he would’ve wanted.
I was chomping at the bit for a nice, hot shower and at least ten hours of sleep as I rode the subway to my aunt’s apartment in Brooklyn. It wasn’t the safest method of transportation, but since driving wasn’t an option it was my only choice. Although Yvonne and I worked in Manhattan, it didn’t afford us the luxury to actually live there.
Anyway, I had a bottle of pepper spray in my bag and a rape whistle in case I ran into trouble. It was almost five a.m. by the time I got home, took my long-awaited shower, and crawled into bed in my knickers and T-shirt. I didn’t wake until a little after one, but I’d slept like the dead and was deliciously rested.
I could hear Beethoven playing in the living room. Yvonne must’ve been home, enjoying her day off. Since she was management, my aunt usually finished work around the same time I started, so we didn’t cross paths too often. It was good in the sense that we both got our alone time in the apartment, because it wasn’t exactly what you’d call spacious.
This also meant I hadn’t seen her for a couple days. We shared the odd text message, or Post-It note stuck to the fridge, but that was it. I could smell her signature roast chicken cooking in the oven, and the scent made my mouth water.
That was the problem with working until three or four in the morning, you always ended up eating lunch for breakfast.
Needing to pee, I pulled on some shorts and wandered down the hallway toward the bathroom, stopping when I heard Yvonne had company. A deep, masculine voice replied to something she said and I frowned. It wasn’t like Yvonne to have men over. In fact, she was one of those rare fish who’d always been quite happy to stay single. Her work was her lover.
She must’ve heard me emerge from my room because she called out, “Evelyn, are you up?”
Usually, I’d just call back that I was and go about my business, but curiosity got the better of me. Running my fingers through my sleep-knotted hair, I wandered into the living room and froze in place when I reached the threshold.
As though consciously punctuating the significance of the moment, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 arrived at its pinnacle point. I saw a giant wave crashing into the ocean, a volcano erupting rivulets of molten lava from its lofty peak, the sharp crack of lightning in the sky, as I came face to face with a pair of dark blue eyes I hadn’t seen in almost eight years.
Dylan O’Dea.
As I live and fucking breathe.
Actually, strike that, I wasn’t breathing. The sight of him rendered my lungs incapable of normal function. Then I remembered I was wearing the crumpled T-shirt I’d slept in and a pair of shorts that left little to the imagination. I was also sporting gorgeous bedhead. As a result, self-consciousness kicked in.
Then I remembered this was a man who’d seen me in every possible guise, from the good, to the bad, to the ugly, and I knew any level of vanity was pointless.
“Evelyn,” he said, standing. He sounded so different, so mature and grown-up. The last time I saw him he was twenty-two. He’d returned to Dublin for a fleeting visit. Now he’d be thirty.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed and ran a hand through his hair. I wondered if he felt as off-kilter as I did.
“Oh Ev, we’ve both been so busy with work this last week I didn’t even get to tell you. I bumped into Dylan the other day. What a small world it is,” Yvonne said, while Dylan’s gaze never left me. Those wise, astute eyes took all of me in, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. Old memories stirred, of a time when he could own me with a look like this one.
“He has his own perfume boutique downtown now. Can you believe it?” Yvonne continued as she looked at Dylan. “You’ve come a long way from St Mary’s Villas, that’s for sure.”
He owned his own perfume franchise, actually, but no way was I admitting I’d followed his career. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never actually smelled any of his products. Half of it was due to fear. I didn’t want to remember him, how close we’d once been, because scent had a way of plunging you into the past.
The other half was the fact that his success made me feel like a failure. I knew it was silly, especially since I was the one who told him to go fulfil his dreams all those years ago, but a part of me felt overwhelmed by all he’d achieved.
Probably because I hadn’t really achieved anything myself.
“We all have,” said Dylan, eyes coming back to me again. “Yvonne invited me over for lunch to catch up. I hope you don’t mind.”
I waved him away. “Not at all. Sorry I’m not dressed. I work nights. It’s good to see you though.” My words came out in a rush, and his features warmed.
“It’s good to see you, too, Evelyn.”
I smiled awkwardly and fiddled with the hem of my T-shirt. Heat claimed my face and chest. His attention dipped to my bare thighs for a second, then he sat back down on the couch and crossed a leg over his knee. “I can’t wait to hear all about what you’ve been up to these days.”
That was funny, because all I could think about was our past. It was a time I’d never truly moved on from. Dylan left because he had to, but also because he thought he was bad luck. He felt to blame for what happened to Sam, and I suspected he’d never gotten over that guilt.
His stare fixed on me and there was a long moment where the two of us just . . . looked at each other.
Here was a man who had once been a boy, who had once stolen my heart, who had once been my whole entire world. Now we were virtual strangers.
Sure, I’d followed his career, but it wasn’t like he gave interviews or maintained a social media presence. Dylan O’Dea was far too mysterious for all that. But I had read articles and stories in the news. They weren’t top stories by any means, which was why Yvonne was vaguely in the dark as to his success, b
ut they were still there.
And like the glutton for punishment that I was, I’d sought them out, eager for any piece of insight. It was a pointless activity, of course. It wasn’t like I ever planned to find him.
“Well, I’ll let you two catch up while I go check on the roast,” said my aunt.
Oh, Yvonne, for someone so tuned in you are completely oblivious sometimes.
She went. I turned and headed for the drinks cabinet. God knew this occasion called for one.
“What will you have?” I asked as I picked up bottles and pretended to read the labels.
“Whiskey is good,” Dylan replied, and I nodded, still not facing him.
I poured his drink, plus one for myself, then turned to hand it over. His eyes travelled up my body as I approached. “The years have been good to you, Ev. You look incredible.”
I arched a brow. “I look like I just stepped out of bed.”
His voice went husky. “Like I said—”
“What are you even doing here?” I kept quiet so my aunt couldn’t hear.
He frowned. “Yvonne invited me.”
“You didn’t have to say yes.”
He gave me an oh, come on look. “Nobody can say no to your aunt, Ev. You know that.”
He was right. Yvonne’s friendly demeanour was impossible to resist, just like mine had been once upon a time. Now I was a world-weary grump with a perennial dark cloud over my head. In fact, a lot of the world-weariness was Dylan’s doing. Wait, no, that was the old me. I was taking my positive mojo back, the one I had when I was a girl.
“No, not many people can say no to Yvonne,” I agreed and went to take a seat on the armchair. I folded my legs up under me, the ones Dylan’s eyes kept wandering back to, and sipped my drink.
Yikes, whiskey was not a good idea first thing in the morning. Or afternoon.
I set it down and eyed Dylan in his designer suit. It was a far cry from the jeans and work shirts he used to wear at St Mary’s. But I guess he was a big-shot business tycoon now. He had to look the part.
