by A. S. Kelly
Aaron, Patrick and Jay decided to leave the city and open the Only4You, the pub where they all currently work and were able to buy the house where they all live together.
All of this was done in order to protect Rain, to guarantee her privacy and to offer her a peaceful life away from the spotlight and the press and anything else that could remind her of the life she no longer has. It took about two years, and then Liam, the other band member and Neil’s brother, came back after having been away for a while and giving his solo career a try.
The guys hated him for it because he took off and left everyone else behind, but Liam rolled up his sleeves, earned forgiveness and won over Rain’s heart. It seemed that he had always been in love with her, but she was his brother’s girlfriend and he kept his feelings hidden. Such as it was, his love was so great that he wasn’t able to keep it to himself and now, after many difficulties, they are together and Rain is all the better for it.
Aaron has been taking care of Rain since their parents died. He helped her get through school, he gave her a family and was by her side after the accident, sacrificing his life for hers.
But Aaron is a guy with a heart of gold who has always worked for everyone. He wasn’t there just for his sister, he also helped Jay get back on his feet after Alex, the girl he is in love with, had to face a difficult heart operation and from which she came out a bit weaker, but alive. Aaron was his right-hand man, and didn’t leave him alone, even for a second, and now Jason and Alex are together and they’re happy despite everything. Without even mentioning what he’s done for that ass of a brother of mine who is prone to causing a ruckus and allergic to relationships and responsibility. Aaron’s influence must have been beneficial to him because Patrick fell in love with Erin, this fantastic girl who has given him love, trust and a family. Erin worked at the pub and had found herself in big trouble. She was pregnant by her ex, the guy who had dumped her for an another woman. Patrick was at her side, helping her and taking care of both her and the baby she was expecting until he found that he was completely in love with both of them. Now that baby is just like his own.
Aaron has taken everyone into this house, it’s a big house, sure, but it’s getting to be a bit too crowded. He built himself an extended family, he has acted like the glue holding everything together under his protective wing, offering work, hope and a dream for all of them. And now that they’re all taken care of and happy, now that they’ve resolved all their problems and started new lives with the people they love, what’s left for Aaron?
I can’t help but mulling it all over as I walk slowly with a heavy heart towards home, after having spent the whole day at university. The night has descended quickly and with it, the temperature, and I shiver in my cardigan, holding my arms around my chest. I step up my pace, distracted with my head in the clouds, worried about Aaron and what I saw in his eyes. The emptiness. Total nothingness. A bottomless vortex which seemed to swallow him whole.
I cross the street and hurry up to get home. Today I’ve got to move in with the guys, the wedding is just three days away and us girls are going to take care of the house until the big day and the guys will be going to a hotel. Tonight is also going to be Erin’s hen party—another obligation as a bridesmaid that I wasn’t able to get out of.
And as I walk along the flats in the neighborhood, I reflect that this place has always given me the shivers. It’s not well lit and there’s never anyone on the street, but there are plenty of those dolls with assassin eyes, spying on you from the windows.
I breathe slowly to calm my anxiety when I hear a noise of gravel crunching behind me, as if someone has decided to start following me.
A shiver runs down my spine.
I speed up, forcing myself not to turn around but the footsteps are getting faster and are closing in. It’s hard for me to control my breathing at this point, there is no one else on the street and the lights in the surrounding buildings are nearly all off. Even if someone were there, they wouldn’t go to the trouble of looking out to see what’s happening.
Take it easy, I tell myself, it’s nothing. I turn my head slowly and continue walking. I can make out a figure a few meters away but in the dark, I’m not able to distinguish any facial features.
I do not feel safe. I feel nervous and scared and I start to run by pure instinct as my control snaps and a scream escapes from my mouth. I run as fast as I can and am winded. I want to be faster and more cunning but, in a few seconds, I can feel him. I am being hunted, I am alone and I am frightened.
In my desperate attempt to escape before he can reach me, I trip on a grate and fall forwards. My hands reach out before me instinctively to block my fall, but my knee takes a hard knock and I scream out in pain. I sit on the asphalt exhausted and terrified as I begin to shake and swallow my tears. Someone grabs me from behind and I let out a desperate scream, quite sure that there is no escape for me now but then, that someone lifts me off the ground, makes me turn around and holds me in his arms so tightly that I can’t breathe.
I recognize the embrace.
I recognize the desperation.
—
AARON
“I’m just asking you for a fucking favor, what’s your problem?”
“You should be going to get her, it’s your job, you’re her brother.”
“And I’m asking you to go do it in my place because I have to go pick up the wedding rings and the jewelers close in a little more than a half an hour. I’ll never make it in time.”
Patrick asked me to collect Ciara from home and bring her here because she’s going to sleep with the girls tonight. He had forgotten to go and pick up the rings because he’s a hopeless idiot and now it’s up to me to clean up his mess.
“Why is it such a pain in the ass for you? All I’m asking you is to do is go and pick up Ciara.”
And that’s true, he isn’t asking me for any great sacrifice: just go there, get her, bring her here. That’s it. And yet, I can’t do it. I can’t be in such a confined space, like my car, alone with her. Not after the other night.
“Oh, fine!” I say, giving up. I don’t have any excuse I can use and if I insist, he’ll just ask some pointed questions, making the whole thing worse.
“Jesus, did it really take this much? Hurry up, she’s probably already at home waiting by now.”
Without saying another word, I take the keys and leave the pub. We’re all busy tonight but the wedding is imminent and we’ve all got our own tasks to do. Erin is ruthless, she wants everything to be perfect and who can blame her, it’s her day. As far as Patrick’s concerned it’s enough for him that she’s happy. He’d do anything to see her smile.
I get in the car and try to force a bit of courage. I feel my stomach tied up in knots. I feel like I’m being eaten from the inside out and it’s suffocating. Thank God I didn’t eat anything because otherwise I’d risk throwing up on the dashboard.
And I drive almost without breathing, the traffic is really slowing me down: I should have gotten to Pearse St in a maximum of thirty minutes but I’ve been closed in this little box of sardines with insufficient oxygen to fill my lungs for at least fifty.
I park in front of Patrick’s family’s door and get out, praying that my legs will move. Right foot, left foot—not difficult, right?
The idea of seeing her now, being alone with her and being forced to face the whole ‘roof thing’ together with the ‘hug thing’ and the ‘bed thing’… Jesus, I need to think about something else, anything else to distract me from this nail that is driving straight into my cranium.
I knock on the door with butterflies in my stomach and my mind in a daze but no one answers. The lights are out, maybe nobody’s home yet. I look at my watch and realize I’m seriously late. She should have been expecting Patrick over an hour ago.
I take a look around to make sure no one is coming, that no one is about to pop around the corner before deciding to start walking towards Trinity College where perhaps she was delayed a
fter her lessons.
Anything to avoid standing here like a chump, letting myself be eaten alive.
Keep moving.
I shove my hands in my pockets and pull up the hood on my sweatshirt, I don’t even have a fucking jacket—I certainly didn’t think I’d be outside all night.
I walk two hundred, three hundred meters maybe before hearing a yell coming from the low-income housing nearby. I freeze where I am on the sidewalk and strain to hear. Another shout makes my limbs quiver and anguish rises in my throat. I run like a crazy man directly to where the sound seems to be coming from until I get round the corner and the scene before me awakens all of the rage I ever felt as a boy towards the world, all the rage I set aside to take care of Rain and our lives. I start sprinting, prepared to see blood flowing in rivers when the man becomes aware of me and takes off before I can get to him.
I run to her and grab her shoulders, scaring her again and making her scream once more.
Then I turn her towards me and hold her tight enough to feel her body melt with mine.
It’s just a terrifying sensation.
I caress her back gently and whisper to tell her to take it easy, that everything is alright and she breaks into sobs, and I wish I could placate her feelings but I’m unable to, because right now, I swear, I would like to cry too, right after having split that guy’s head in two.
“Are you alright?” I ask her, moving her away from me to look her in the eyes. The tears continue falling down her face together with a half a kilo of the make-up she had on her eyes.
She nods before I wrap her in my arms and start breathing again.
My heart is completely out of whack. It’s beating furiously against my ribcage, reminding me that perhaps I haven’t buried it deep enough. Because there is something, someone, that is able to bring it back to the surface and awaken all of my emotions. To bring back everything I was no longer able to feel.
I tell myself, maybe that’s a good thing because it must mean I still haven’t transformed into a slab of ice, that I can still recognize an emotion when it grabs hold of me; but then I remember who it is that my heart has started beating again for, the person who has made my blood start to flow again. The one for whom I would have killed someone with my bare hands tonight.
And I start really shaking because we’re talking about a girl that until yesterday was wearing a school uniform with a pleated skirt and kneesocks. Ciara, who is now grown and has become a beautiful woman and… God, I’m messing with my own head now.
“Come on. I’ll take you home,” I tell her.
She nods and tries to take a few steps but bends over, touching her knee.
“Something wrong?”
“I think I banged my knee when I hit the ground,” she says, touching it again.
“Let me have a look.” I crouch down to the level of her knees and notice that her stockings are completely torn, both knees are bleeding and seem to be swollen as well.
“Are you able to walk?” I ask her, standing up and looking at her again.
She nods, but after two steps, she bites her lip in distress.
So, I bend down and wrap one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and I lift her off the ground and draw her to my chest.
“Aaron… there’s no need,” she protests, but I’m not listening to her.
I walk towards home with her in my arms as if I were some fucking hero, the kind that at the end of the movie, after having saved all of humanity also wins the heart of the woman he loves, and after having just saved her life, he brings her to the top of the world in his strong arms.
But I’m no hero. I haven’t saved the world and if I had let my pride win out over my good sense I certainly wouldn’t be here right now.
I would not have found her on the street, I wouldn’t have been able to…
Okay, I have to stop thinking about it.
She’s fine now and in my arms.
And nothing is going to happen to her, because I’m not going to let it.
5
CIARA
Aaron helps me rest my feet on the ground only when we get to my front doorstep, to allow me to search for the keys in my purse and open the door. We didn’t say a word the entire time.
We go inside and sit on the couch. He bends down in front of me to better assess the situation and confirms that my knees look pretty bad.
“Those cuts need to be disinfected. Where do you keep the emergency medical supply kit?” he asks me.
“In the upstairs bathroom.”
Without adding another word, he lifts me off the couch and brings me upstairs. He pushes my bedroom door open with his shoulder and sets me down on the bed.
“Don’t move,” he says, before disappearing.
And I don’t. Because I am completely in shock because of what just happened and I’m embarrassed about it because he’s here, in my room, and I’m feeling vulnerable and defenseless.
He comes back after a few minutes with the first-aid kit. He sets it down on the ground and opens it to look over its contents. Then, without looking me in the eyes, he unlaces my sneakers and slides them off my feet. He makes a gesture that I should stand up and touches my waist with his hands, making me shiver and causing my legs to wobble. Then he immediately withdraws them as if my skin had burned his hands.
“I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”
I interrupt him by shaking my head before unbuttoning my jeans and letting them slide down my legs. He continues looking me in the eyes, even if his glance changes suddenly, becoming darker and more intense as I take my stockings off too until I’m left only in a pair of men’s boxer shorts. And yes, I know they’re not real attractive, but I like wearing them.
We remain standing in front of each other while I feel the air in this room becoming dense with electricity but before things can get embarrassing, he breaks the silence.
“Go on, sit down,” he orders with a hint of a smile. “It’s nothing I’m not used to seeing you know, I’ve got three women in our house.”
I do as he tells me as he lifts the first leg, placing it on his and begins cleaning the wound. It burns and I pull away but he holds it in place. “Stay put, I promise it’ll pass in a hurry,” he reassures me using a warm hoarse voice.
My knees are a disaster, because as I was trying to escape I took a bad fall. They are red, bruised and swelling with every passing moment. I will surely have some impressive bruises. Luckily, the bridesmaid’s dresses are long or Erin would have killed me if my ruined knees were going to be on view.
Aaron finishes cleaning my wounds and then disappears downstairs. I hear him moving around in the kitchen before coming back with two frozen gel packs in hand. He puts both of them on my knees and I shiver from the cold, jumping from my seat a little bit.
He smiles and shoots me a sweet gaze and if I hadn’t been sitting on my bed I probably would have fallen at his feet.
“How… what… were you doing there?” I ask, trying to regain my equilibrium.
“Patrick sent me. He forgot to go pick up the wedding rings, so…” He clears his throat before continuing in a strong reassuring voice: “Do you feel like telling me what happened?”
“There’s not much to say. Someone was following me.” The words die in my throat. In all of the confusion with what was happening and the initial shock, I still haven’t really digested what just really happened here.
I bite my lip to avoid avoid trembling and try to hold back the tears but Aaron notices the change in my mood right away. He gets up and sits next to me, pulling me to him, wrapping me in his big arms so that my entire body is covered.
I snuggle down into his warmth, immediately feeling at home there and allow myself to cry on his shoulder while he caresses my hair and reassures me, saying it’s all past now, that I’m safe here because he’s still with me.
“I just got scared, it was probably nobody.”
“You should not have been coming home by yourself at nig
ht.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard. I probably just freaked myself out and there was no one behind me.”
“There was someone behind you but he took off before I could get my hands on him,” he says very seriously, looking me in the eyes. “It could have been anyone and he could have hurt you and I would not have been able to tolerate it…”
He stops suddenly, setting his jaw.
My heart accelerates wildly with emotion.
“Patrick never would have forgiven me if something had happened to you.”
And then he stops, as if his words had completely taken me down. What he just said is sufficient to cool off my feelings which I need to get back under control again, once and for all, to stop this back and forth wildness with my heart.
“Sure… Patrick,” I say, disappointed, even if I don’t have a reason for feeling this way.
Aaron is a friend, for my brother and for me too and my disappointment is just an echo of some insanity that keeps popping up in my mind for one stupid moment after another, a misunderstanding with little meaning.
“We have to go,” I say harshly, getting up from the bed. “The others are waiting for me.”
“Do you feel like going? Do you want me to call your mom or Patrick?”
“No, I’m fine. Nothing happened. There’s no need to inform anyone of anything.”
“You should talk about it with someone, you need to get it off your chest.”
“I said I’m fine,” I repeat curtly. I don’t want him to worry about me.
“Ciara,” he says my name in a sweeter tone of voice.
“It’s nothing, Aaron. I just want to change, gather up my things and go and not mention what happened here again.”
He looks at me, frowning, and in his eyes I see worry and indecision so I decide to lay it on the line.
“I’m not a little girl anymore,” I tell him, lifting my chin and crossing my arms. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m grown up. I’m twenty-two years old and I’m a woman,” I conclude, turning my back on him and leaving the room, closing myself in the bathroom, where I can finally give way to my emotions, which are a mixture of fear, confusion and anger because I was about to risk it all, and I’m not just talking about my safety.
