by Sophie Love
“Would you prefer to risk being perceived as uncaring instead? Because that might be how you come across.”
Orin was right. One voicemail was pathetic. She had to show Shane how much she cared. And she was running out of time to do it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Up in her room, Keira held her phone in her trembling hand and tried to calm her ragged breath. She dialed Shane’s number, willing him to pick up, to stop blocking her out. But he didn’t. The voicemail clicked on.
“Shane, it’s me again. I know you don’t want to speak to me but hear me out, please? There’s so much I need to say. I know there’s nothing I can say to make this okay. And I understand if you don’t accept my apology. But I really care about you, Shane. And I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t want us to part like this, on this sour note. I need you to know how sorry I am. I wish I could go back in time and not write a single one of those awful words. I was wrong. I was being the snob you thought I was. But everything has changed now. Please, let’s talk this through. I don’t want to go without saying a proper goodbye.”
She hung up. Leaving the message had been very difficult to do. But hadn’t Simon and Sylvia told her the best course of action was honesty? She sounded nervous because she was, and there was nothing wrong with Shane knowing that.
She sat on the bed and stared at her phone, breathing deeply. She’d never felt so on edge; not when Zachary was losing it that day when she told him she was flying to Ireland; not even when Joshua had called her out and insulted her in front of the entire writing staff. She realized now that that was because she hadn’t cared about either of those things even half as much as she thought she did. What she cared about was Shane. How had it taken her so long to realize? To accept her feelings toward him? She’d pretty much left it until the very last second! If Shane didn’t call her back today it would be too late—she was flying home tomorrow; there would be no other chance to make amends.
She twiddled her fingers and watched her phone, willing it to ring. Then suddenly it did.
Keira’s heart leapt into her throat. She grabbed the phone. But it wasn’t Shane calling her back. It was Zachary.
Keira felt immediately enraged to see his name there. How dare he be calling her?
She was about to reject the call—neither wanting to hear Zach’s voice or block up the line in case Shane did decide to call her back—but paused for a brief moment of reflection. Why would Zachary be calling her? Things had ended so sourly between them. For him to get in touch after all these weeks of silence worried her. Maybe it was something to do with the apartment they rented together? What if it was something even worse like his mom or sister being struck down with an illness? What if he’d been diagnosed with something terminal?
Realizing she was just going to work herself up into a frenzy by speculating, Keira reluctantly accepted the call.
“I didn’t think you were going to pick up,” Zach said.
It was so strange to hear his voice again.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to,” Keira replied. “Your voice isn’t exactly one I’ve been wanting to hear.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” Zach said.
“Is it?” Keira challenged him. “Were you really expecting me to be cordial after the way you treated me?”
Zach sighed. “I’m not calling you to drag up the past.”
“I’m sure you aren’t!” Keira said. “It paints you in a pretty bad light if I recall.” She found that she was suddenly fuming. All the anger she’d had inside of her all this time was suddenly spilling out.
“Keira, can you just shut up for a minute?” Zach said. “I need to talk to you.”
Keira was about to lay into him for his rudeness, but the tone of his voice concerned her. “What’s happened? Is everything okay?”
Her mind went into overdrive imagining all the bad things he might be about to tell her. As much as she hated Ruth, she still didn’t like the thought of her dying suddenly in a car crash.
“Yeah. It’s just, well, you’re coming home tomorrow, aren’t you?”
He sounded nervous. Keira wondered why.
“I’m landing midday local time. But don’t worry, I won’t come to the apartment if that’s weird. I can stay at Bryn’s for a bit then arrange a time to pick up my stuff.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then Zach spoke again.
“That’s the thing, Keira,” he said. “I’m wondering whether it would be too hasty for you to pack up and move out. I mean, we haven’t had a post-breakup meeting or anything.”
Keira frowned, confused. “Is this some new modern relationship thing I don’t know about?” she asked sarcastically. “I wasn’t aware it was customary to meet face to face once you’d broken up.”
“I just think it would be a good idea. I mean, things can be said over the phone in the heat of the moment that shouldn’t have been.”
Keira grew even more puzzled. “Are you referring to anything specific?”
Another long pause.
“I just mean how are we supposed to know it’s really over when you’ve been away for a whole month? We haven’t seen each other, or even spoken really. We might feel differently when we’re face to face.”
“I don’t think I’m going to feel differently about you cheating on me,” she scoffed. “On second thought, I might feel angrier about it if I see you face to face. It will make the mental pictures easier to imagine.”
“Keira, please,” Zach said. “This is difficult for me.”
“What’s difficult?” Keira demanded, exasperated. “You’re not saying anything.”
“I’m being quite clear,” Zach said.
“No you’re not!” She couldn’t help but think of the advice Simon and Sylvia had given her about apologizing, accepting your flaws, realizing you’re often wrong, speaking honestly and from the heart. Zach seemed incapable of all of those things.
“I’m saying we should try again,” he said finally. “See how we go. You come back to the apartment and we’ll have a drink together, you know? Talk things through face to face.”
Keira’s frown intensified. “You mean get back together?” She could hardly believe what she was hearing. This seemed completely out of the blue.
“Sure,” Zach replied. “Maybe.”
His evasiveness was grating on her. He couldn’t even say a straight “yes” because that would be a roundabout way of admitting he’d been wrong in the first place. Not that it would make a difference to her. She was so over Zach. This call was nothing more than confirmation of what she already knew.
“Why the hell would I want to do that?” she said. “Why would you, come to think of it? I’m never going to be the kind of girl you need me to be. You know, lacking ambition. Putting your needs above my own.”
“That’s not what I wanted you to be,” Zachary snapped. “I was always very supportive of your career.”
Keira couldn’t help herself from barking out a laugh. “Yeah, because giving someone an ultimatum between taking an amazing opportunity at work and staying in a relationship with them are the actions of a completely supportive boyfriend?”
“Now you’re just being facetious. There was never an ultimatum.”
Keira threw her arms up, exasperated. Zachary seemed to possess the ability to rewrite history whenever he desired to support whatever position he needed it to. It was beyond infuriating.
“I think I know what’s happened,” Keira said. “Your little fling with Julia has ended and you’re wondering where you’re going to get your next kicks from. Well, listen to me carefully. It won’t be with me.”
“You’re being crass. This isn’t just about sex. What we had was great.”
There he went again, reinventing the past.
“Maybe for you it was,” Keira said sternly. “But it wasn’t for me.”
“Look, here’s what I propose,” Zach said, as if he just wasn’t hearing what she was saying. “I’ll pick you up
from the airport. We’ll grab coffee and lunch. Talk things through like grown-ups.”
She took a deep breath. “Zach, that’s not going to happen. You’re literally the last person I want to see when I get back to New York City.”
“Now you’re being dramatic,” he argued. “Let’s just see how it goes when we’re together again. I’m sure there will still be sparks.”
“You’re not listening to me!” Keira yelled, the last semblance of patience she had left completely evaporating. “I DO NOT want to be with you anymore. I DO NOT want to see you or speak to you or have a goddamn coffee with you. Because I DO NOT love you.”
“I’m not asking you to love me,” Zach replied. “It’s not like love ever entered into the equation before.”
“Then what’s the point?” Keira cried, realizing as she said it just how much she now meant it. “Why bother being with someone who doesn’t move your whole world?”
Shane’s face materialized in her mind’s eye as she spoke the words. Her longing for him intensified.
“Because we had fun,” Zach replied. He was talking more quickly now, his nerves audible in his voice. Perhaps it was finally sinking in.
“That’s the thing,” Keira said. “We didn’t have a great time together. In fact, we were pretty incompatible. If you don’t love someone after two years together you’re never going to, and that’s not because love’s changed in the modern world, it’s because… it’s because we just didn’t have it. I’m sorry, Zach. But I know that now.”
“I don’t understand,” Zachary replied. “You’ve been abroad for a month and, what, you’ve found yourself? That’s a bit cliché, don’t you think?”
Keira realized how little she cared about his criticism. Keeping Zachary happy wasn’t even on her radar anymore.
“Maybe to you,” she said. “But I don’t care. It is what it is. I’ve changed. And we’re over. You and me. For good.”
Zach didn’t seem to be getting the message. “How about I give you a couple of days to settle back into New York City life?” he suggested, sounding hopeful.
“NO!” Keira cried. “Listen to me. I’m saying no. I don’t love you. I never did. I never will. I’m in love with someone else.”
The words tumbled from her mouth, and she left it hanging open, shocked and surprised to hear herself. But it was true, wasn’t it? She loved Shane. That’s what she’d discovered since coming here. Love was real, because she’d found it in him.
“Who?” Zach demanded.
“No one you know.”
“Someone in Ireland?” His tone had changed. She could hear the sneer in his voice. “That’s a bit doomed, don’t you think?”
Keira shrugged and took a deep breath. “I guess it is.” There was nothing left to say. Loving Shane but not being able to be with him didn’t equate to returning to Zachary. It never would. “I’m going to go now. Bye, Zach.”
She hung up before she could hear his response.
Sitting back down on the bed, Keira stared at her phone in her hand again. But she was done willing it to ring. She’d had enough of sitting impassively in her room waiting for Shane to take the bait. She’d just admitted to herself that she loved him. There was no way she could just sit here and hope he decided to get back in touch. She was running out of time. He needed to know. And she needed to tell him.
She stood and exited her room, then hurried down the stairs. In the pub, she waved to Orin behind the bar.
“He’s gone home, hasn’t he?” she asked him. “To his mom and dad’s?”
Orin’s face twisted with indecision. “He told me not to tell you.”
Ouch. That stung. But Keira was determined.
“You didn’t tell me,” she said. “I worked it out myself. You just nodded.”
Orin looked from left to right as though checking for witnesses. Then he nodded his head quickly.
Keira smiled at him, triumphant. Then she hurried out of the pub, armed with everything she needed: a destination, a goal, and a pounding heart.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Keira clutched the steering wheel of her rental car in her hands. She could only vaguely remember where she was going from the funny town name signs, remembering how Shane had sent photos to Bryn and Nina for her, how they’d laughed together that day. Was she behaving like a crazy person, driving somewhere she’d only been once to turn up on the doorstep of a man she’d known for less than a month to confess her love for him! Yep, it sounded pretty crazy in her head. If only Bryn could see her now.
It was midday and Keira realized she hadn’t eaten any lunch and had no way to procure any for the next few hours. But she didn’t care. She could forgo sustenance.
The drive seemed to take forever. All the adrenaline coursing through her body didn’t help, since it had the effect of making time seem to pass slower. She checked her phone periodically, hoping that Shane would call her back and ease at least some of the tension she was feeling about him rejecting her. But he didn’t. She ruminated on whether he’d listened to her most recent voicemail, what he thought about it if he had. Did he hate her? Would he be less than impressed—or even offended—when she turned up at his house like a possessed woman? But then she remembered Simon and Sylvia, their advice, their words, their love. That’s what kept her going. All her memories of the festival converged together in her mind, each one another step that had taken her closer to this place, turning her more and more into a hopeless romantic.
It took her four hours total before she found herself on the road she recognized, the main street in Shane’s town. She remembered the jokes he’d made about the different locations in the town. The “post office.” The “nightclub.” Doris the donkey. Her heart skipped with anticipation.
She craned her head, searching for the single track dirt road that led to the family’s farm. Everything looked the same here—roads that were little more than muddy grooves made by tractor tires. Then suddenly she spotted it. She wasn’t sure at all what made her know this was the road she was looking for since it looked exactly the same as the last three she’d passed, but something inside her told her this was it, she’d found it.
She yanked the steering wheel left, the car stuttering in protest as she failed to kick it down a gear into first. Consequently, she found herself thundering along the road at an uncomfortably fast pace.
Up ahead she saw something blocking the path. She just had time to slam the brakes on. The car ground to a halt behind a whole crowd of sheep.
Keira jerked forward, her chest straining against the seat belt, then thunked back against her seat. She felt the car stall, then everything fell silent.
She took a moment to check herself, to breathe and make sure nothing was broken—the car or herself. Confident that everything was indeed still in one piece, Keira glanced out the windshield at the backsides of a hundred sheep. There was no way through.
Without wasting a second to contemplate her next move, Keira threw the door open and leapt out the car, abandoning it in the middle of the path. She had to inch up against the hedges to squeeze alongside the sheep, who seemed to move like a slow-flowing river. The smell was less than pleasant, and the sheep didn’t seem pleased by her intrusion. Keira had never realized quite how menacing sheep looked close up. They stared at her cautiously, and she couldn’t help but imagine that they were sizing her up. She gulped and continued to shove her way past them.
Soon she found herself in the middle of the group. Everywhere she looked there was white wool, so much of it she couldn’t even see below her waist. She could feel the pellets of sheep poo squelching beneath her feet, however.
At last she saw light at the end of the tunnel. She was just about near the front of the herd. She used her arms to help her wade through the crowd, like she was trying to propel herself through water. Then suddenly she was out. She wasted no time and ran the rest of the path toward the farmhouse.
When she made it to the house at the end, she was panting from th
e exertion. Sweat clung to her skin. The smell of sheep poo had followed her all the way, and she looked down to see her jeans covered in it, saturated up to the ankles. But even though she knew she looked like something that had crawled out of a swamp, she wasn’t deterred.
She catapulted herself at the door of the farm house and began to knock.
The door flung open. There stood Hannah. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of Keira.
“Keira?” she gasped. “Is that you?”
Keira took a deep breath, still trying to catch it from her sprint here. All she could do was nod.
“What happened to you?” Hannah cried.
Keira was only able to manage the word “sheep.” She jerked her thumb out behind her.
“Oh no,” Hannah said, looking up the path. “The sheep escaped again.” She looked over her shoulder, back into the cottage. “Dad! The sheep escaped!”
Keira waved her arms, trying to get Hannah’s attention back. There were far more important things at stake than escaped sheep!
“Shane,” she managed to stammer. “Is he here?”
Hannah paused and looked at her suspiciously. “Maybe…”
Keira finally managed to straighten up, the painful stitch in her side abating.
“Can you tell him I’m here?” Keira asked. “Hannah, please? I messed up, I know that. But I really need to talk to him.”
Hannah folded her arms, trying to look menacing. She was far too cute for that, though Keira wasn’t about to tell her.
“I’ll see,” she said through pursed lips. “But I’m not promising anything.”
She shut the door, leaving Keira on the porch steps. Keira listened through the door, hearing the commotion from the other side, the sound of Shane’s excited sisters talking rapidly.
The door flew open again and there was Calum, dressed in boots, with the family’s sheep dog at his feet.
“Hi, Keira,” he said, smiling broadly. “I’m just off to deal with an escaped sheep problem.”
Then he hurried off down the path. Keira looked through the open door and saw Shane’s six sisters standing in the bright, warm corridor, huddled conspiratorially together, talking quickly.
