by A. S. Kelly
“What?” Erin jumps to her feet on the bed. “Who could be such an idiot as to not want you?”
“I don’t believe it,” Rain adds. “Only someone crazy or a card-carrying homosexual would refuse you.”
Oh dear.
“Maybe he’s scared, or confused?” Alex reflects out loud. “Does he know how you feel?”
“Not explicitly, but it’s evident.”
“Oh honey, nothing for them is ever evident. They’re men, remember? They wouldn’t recognize it if you put it right under their noses.”
“Erin!” Alex pretends to be scandalized, but she isn’t really.
We all laugh heartily, when there’s a knock at the door.
The room falls into instant silence.
“Uh… excuse me.”
The last voice I was ready to hear right now brings me crashing back to reality.
“What the heck are you doing here, Aaron?” Rain gets to her feet and goes towards the door, opening it angrily.
“I’m on guard,” he says, sounding a bit embarrassed, touching his beard.
“On guard? What are you, a dog?”
“Us guys weren’t sure about leaving you all alone at home.”
“We don’t need bodyguards. What’s the problem, you don’t trust us?” Erin intervenes, getting off the bed and going to the door as well.
“It’s not like that, and you all know it, it’s just we didn’t feel comfortable leaving you all alone in the house, that’s all. Patrick and the others are at the hotel, and I’m just staying here the night, I swear. Before you wake up, I’ll be gone and you won’t be aware of my presence. I’ll stay in my room and won’t stick my nose out, I promise. If you prefer, I can also use earplugs and…”
Rain closes the door in his face.
“Don’t get angry,” Alex says, smiling. “You know why he’s here.”
That’s the moment I regain control of my own thoughts. Seeing him at our door with his hair mussed up and his naked chest, worried about us… I wasn’t able to say even half a word—I didn’t even breathe the whole time he was here. But when Alex says those few words, I do have to acknowledge the boys’ collective worry. Rain had a terrible accident and Alex risked her life when she had a heart operation and she lives with the aftermath of her heart trouble daily, because her illness means she can never sleep alone because she might stop breathing or have an attack while she’s unconscious.
Erin is Lily’s mother and Patrick’s life. What these men feel for their women is so pure and beautiful… Without my even being aware of it, the tears start to fall down my face, to remind me that there is no one outside that door for me. Because Aaron isn’t here for me, as he’s just made clear.
“Oh boy, we’ve got a big problem here.”
Rain interrupts my thoughts and, lifting my head, I realize that everyone is staring at me.
“What… What is it?” I ask them.
“Don’t tell me…”
“Oh, Ciara!” Erin hugs me in consolation.
“Girls, what’s happening?” Alex asks.
“I didn’t really think it was him,” Rain adds. “Well, I knew you had a crush on him, but I thought it was just one of those things, not that you were really interested.”
“What is it? You’re all jumping to conclusions!” I bark with too much self-righteousness, betraying myself. “It’s not what you think.”
“We’ve all been through it,” Alex says, caressing my hair. “These guys are special.”
I start sniffling and give way to my emotions, because I am with my friends, the best people I know and the ones who understand me like no one else.
“He just thinks of me as a friend!” I burst out sobbing like a spineless, stupid adolescent and showing everyone in the process what a little girl I really am.
“My brother is an asshole!” Rain sentences him, making everyone laugh. “But I’ll get him in line, just you wait…”
“No, please. Don’t do anything, I’ve already made myself ridiculous in front of him.”
“Do something… me? And when have I ever stuck my nose into other peoples’ affairs?” she asks with fake innocence as Erin and Alex look at her sideways.
“I will be as silent as a fish.”
And I know full well that it won’t go down like that at all, because all Rain sees are hearts, rainbows and unicorns even on the stormiest of nights, and nothing will hold her back from drawing up a happy ending for her brother.
—
AARON
This is not a lucky period for me. After the strange conversation with Liam and the disastrous evening with Ciara after having kissed her and refused her, after… after all of this, I pull the short straw to be the one to stay home with them. I knew that they would have been upset about it and that Rain would lead the pack, I know she won’t forgive me, but the others were truly worried.
Liam isn’t able to stay a night away from Rain, that man is fucking terrified of losing her again—the fear that something terrible could happen to her when he steps away for five minutes.
And Jay, Good Lord, that man. I admire him tremendously for his strength in staying by Alex’s side. It’s true that he’s loved her since they were kids, but it certainly can’t be easy being close to someone who could drop dead at any moment. Alex will always be sickly and there’s nothing that the heart medications can do for her other than try to keep her alive as long as possible, and I hope that will be a long time, a really long time, because I couldn’t stand to see Jay have a total collapse. What’s more she’s got another serious problem, which is that she can stop breathing in her sleep. It’s true that she’s not alone in that room with the girls, but with me in the house everyone just feels a little bit more relaxed about the whole thing. The guys seemed to think that I was the most appropriate one for the job.
And now I’m forced to bunk down in my room and handcuff myself to the bed, if necessary—whatever it takes to avoid an impulsive breakdown where I go to her, telling her what a jerk I was and that it’s not true at all that I have no feelings for her, and that I regret what happened. That I don’t give a damn about the promise I made to her brother and all the rest of it. That all I want is to have her in my arms and fill my eyes with her beauty.
How did I let myself get caught up in this story? To get muddled up in this mess?
I head downstairs, hoping not to get caught by the girls because I will have lost all credibility with them, because I promised not to leave my room. I hurry up making myself a cup of tea, not that I’m a huge fan of that dark toilet water, but a coffee would wind me up even more at this point. I take out a cup and some milk when I hear some light footsteps, and her perfume fills my senses, almost making me drop the cup.
“I’m leaving, I was just grabbing a cup of tea,” I say without turning around. This is because I wouldn’t be able to resist her presence in my house.
I hear her approaching the worktop in the kitchen but she says nothing. I take in a deep breath and turn around slowly, keeping my eyes downcast because I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to lie to her again.
The first thing I see are her bare feet. I allow myself to raise my glance to discover her perfect legs are nude before me, covered only by pyjama shorts that I would like to bite off. Just another little bit higher, I tell myself, and I discover her stomach in plain view under a fitted tank top that is damned near transparent.
Another centimeter of her skin and I will be hers.
One last big breath in and I see her breasts, which I can make out through the white fabric of that useless tank top, her soft shoulders—the same ones I touched a few hours ago.
By now, the damage has been done, I’ve already gone too far. The line has been crossed, the fortress burned down and my self control gone with it.
I am screwed and tattooed.
I let myself look her over from head to toe and it leaves me quivering like a schoolboy who has just seen a woman’s body for the first time.
&
nbsp; Ciara is a woman. Hell, yes.
She keeps looking at me without saying anything. I see disappointment and frustration in her eyes and I know I’m responsible for it.
“Ciara…”
What the hell am I supposed to say to her? I’ve only just now realized you’re not a little girl, that you’re terribly sexy and beautiful and fair and that you emit a light that blinds me and yet exposes me to something I have always refused for myself and believed I had no right to have.
She steps towards me, dangerous and determined. She takes the cup out of my hands and brings them to her hips. I squeeze slightly, running them over her warm naked skin that I now feel below my fingers. I close my eyes and revel in the moment because it’s the only thing I’m willing to concede myself.
“Look at me, Aaron,” she begs.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t even look at me now?”
“No, Ciara, I can’t permit myself this luxury.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It would be a huge mistake.”
“Because I’m like a sister to you?”
“Jesus, Ciara… I really wish I felt that way.”
“Open your eyes, please,” she whispers sweetly.
I give in to her request and the moment my eyes meet hers and she’s able to read my soul, I understand that I shouldn’t have done it. I realize that I’m not that strong and that it’s useless for me to lock myself away in the dark silence. The light always finds a way to filter through. It doesn’t matter how high and solid your walls are, there’s always a crack ready to let it through. And from that tiny little crack, an entire world is able to follow it in. A world that you have refused most vehemently but one that is able to overtake you and drag you away. I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the emergency exit once I’ve been pulled in.
I try to look away before it’s too late, before her full and sensual lips call to me again. But she won’t let me. She grabs my head in her hands and forces me to look at her.
“I’m doing this for you, believe me,” I tell her. “You have to stay away from me.”
“You don’t need to protect me.”
I shake my head and squirm out of her lethal grip which has almost destroyed me and is about to push me down a flight of stairs and hurt me very, very much.
“We can’t. I can’t give you anything that you want.”
“What would you know about what I want?”
“I’ve known you since you were a child. Colors, sounds, lights. That’s what you are. And dreams, limitless dreams.”
“I’m grown up now, Aaron.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t still believe in fairy tales. You are a believer, and always have been.”
“And where’s the harm in that?” she asks wearily.
“There is no harm, Ciara, none at all. But no one ever read me those same fairy tales, you see. I’m not your prince, I couldn’t be that for anyone.”
“You can’t know that. Things could change.”
“Not for me.” I back away from her, appealing to any shred of force that may be left. “There is no happy ending with me, no happily ever after.”
Her eyes flood with tears and despite the impulse to hold her to me and tell her that I’d do anything in my power to make things different, I decide to go ahead and hurt her without holding back.
Because a wound heals with time. It leaves a scar, but it’s just a memory of something painful far off in the past. If I gave in to her, on the other hand, I wouldn’t only hurt her, I would destroy her and cloud over that wonderful light that she emits with my darkness and drowning her colors in the obscurity of my soul. It’s true that I don’t believe in fairy tales, but she does and I don’t want her to give that up because of me. I don’t want to be the one to crush all those dreams.
So, I gather my courage and look her in the eyes and throw down the coup de grace.
“I don’t feel anything for you, Ciara. I’d use you and throw you away. I’m not interested in anything more, I’m sorry, but things aren’t going to change and I don’t think you’re the kind of girl that’s good for just one night of sex. Because that’s all you could get out of me.”
She steps backwards, hurt.
She turns and runs upstairs and I fall over across the kitchen worktop trying to calm myself down, take control back over my thoughts and these goddamned emotions which are doing their best to break free from the ruins where my heart is being held hostage.
9
CIARA
I wake from a troubled sleep filled with nightmares. I keep seeing Aaron on the roof ready to let himself go. I know that wasn’t his intention when I found himself there alone, but I can’t help worrying for him. It’s very obvious that something’s wrong with him, I don’t know how the others haven’t seen it.
Then I get out of bed and go to the bathroom before the others get up and the frenzy to get in gets too crazy. I take a quick shower because I’m in the city today for work and I’m already running late. I should have taken a few days off for the wedding to be able to stay here and help but the money is good and I need to take advantage of it.
I work for a company that manages coach tours around Dublin. Three or four times a week I do a five-hour shift talking to people about the beauty of our city, the Celtic culture and our people. I enjoy it so much when I can see that the tourists are interested in what I’m saying, and they look at me open mouths and big dreamy eyes. They ask me questions stemming from our nation’s culture. I like encouraging their curiosity and confess I’ve sewn a few tales that don’t correspond 100 per cent to factual events, but I know they love it. People seem to like me, I’m always happy and fun and think I always have been.
See, I have this personality which is open and positive and about the polar opposite of Patrick, for example. I don’t find it difficult to make new friends or to bond with anyone. I do trust in people and I wouldn’t want to live differently. Disappointments always have been part of life and always will be, we all need to make peace with our actions.
What I’m feeling now after Aaron’s refusal burns, and it hurts me as if he wanted to rip my heart out piece by piece. But I won’t let myself be dragged down. I can’t continue to suffer for something that will never be. Even if last night I had the distinct impression that for once things could have gone differently.
I sigh as I do the finishing touches to my make-up in the mirror. I go back to the bedroom to find the other girls sleeping blissfully. I smile to myself and gather my things and head downstairs. I hope to have enough time to at least grab a coffee. I get to the kitchen and freeze in the doorway.
He’s there.
He’s standing in front of me, facing away while he’s loading the coffee machine.
I turn silently around hoping to back away without being noticed but when I think I’ve pulled it off his warm low voice stops me:
“Ciara.”
I inhale deeply and plaster a friendly smile on my face.
“Good morning,” I say, pretending that his words haven’t shattered my heart.
“Do you want… there’s some—”
“Coffee? Yes, please.” I help him. It appears he’s not as good as I am at masking embarrassment.
I sit at the counter and set my huge, colorful purse down. I look at him from the corner of my eye and it would seem he hasn’t had an easy night of it.
Good, he deserves it.
Asshole.
His hair is messed up and he’s got bags under his eyes, his face drawn. He’s wearing a worn out T-shirt that is too large in front but permits me to see the bulging veins in his neck.
“Are you going someplace?” he asks with fake indifference.
“I have a tour this morning, I couldn’t pass it up,” I reply as he sets a steaming cup of coffee before me.
“How’s work going? Do you… like it?”
He’s trying to make conversation with me, the bastard.
“It helps
me pay for school.”
Dry, sterile responses. He won’t get anything more out of me. Let him drown in his guilt.
“Do you need a ride?” he asks, avoiding eye contact.
“No thanks, I’ll take the bus.”
“It’s no problem for me.”
“Nor for me,” I say drily, standing up and ignoring my coffee.
It would appear that our relationship will not go back to how it used to be, it’s useless to pretend nothing happened. Aaron is embarrassed and uncomfortable around me.
“I have to go or I’ll be late.”
“Ciara, please. I’m doing my best, believe me.”
I turn to look him in the eyes. “You don’t have to do anything because nothing happened. It was nothing important, a mistake, right? Just a little stupid episode,” I say, sounding less confident than I would have liked.
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.”
“You don’t hate me, do you? I couldn’t stand it if you hate me.”
His words are like a violent attack on my ears.
“I’m leaving, see you tonight,” I conclude, getting out of the house as quickly as possible.
God, that was stupid of me. I didn’t think before acting. I saw a chance to finally make him mine and I jumped at it without reflecting.
Now I’ve lost his friendship. I’ve lost the intimacy we had. I’ve lost the chance to be any part of his life in order to risk having a bigger part.
I can’t turn back the clock and I can’t erase what’s been done.
And now he asks me not to hate him.
Even if he told me that it was a mistake, that he feels nothing for me, that he would use me for sex and get rid of me, I could never do it.
I could never hate the man I love.
—
AARON
Ciara shoots me one last glance before heading out the door, leaving me alone with the feeling that I’ve just thrown my only chance at happiness to the wind.
The second the front door opens, Liam and Jay make their way in from the back door, entering the kitchen. Jay shakes his head as Liam looks outside where Ciara has just left before turning to me.
