____________

Saoirse

 

 

 

Sunny Queensland, beautiful one day. Perfect the next.

That’s what their slogan was. And it was true. I’d never seen such blue skies in my life. Never felt the heat like I felt here.

The university had set me up in an off-campus student accommodation, a building made up of three- and four-bed apartments filled with only students, only a fifteen-minute walk from campus.

I got along with all three of my female housemates, all of them also doing a science major. Two of them were from Australia, the other an Asian student with perfect English.

I loved my new life: studying, learning and the occasional party (hey, I was a college student after all).

I loved my classes. Loved this sprawling campus with its rows of purple jacaranda trees and beautiful old sandstone buildings curling around open courtyards.

I loved being away from Ireland and no longer being the girl whose ma was a whore or the daughter of a criminal.

But something was missing.

Diarmuid.

For three months I’d missed him so much it felt like I carried a knife around in my guts. I walked around only partly alive, a hollow space sitting in my chest.

I hoped Diarmuid was okay.

I prayed that he didn’t hate me too much.

Would this aching ever fade?

Perhaps. Given enough time the wind could brush away a mountain. But by then my body would have long turned to dust and ash.

I emailed Moina often, sometimes daring to ask if she’d heard from him. Her answer, like always, was no.

Diarmuid hadn’t even come looking for me, it seemed.

This thought always brought a sharp pain to my guts. I shoved it aside. I had been the one who broke his heart. I worded my Dear John letter so that he’d hate me. So it’d be easier to let me go.

Even though I didn’t want him to let me go.

Stupid.

“Is this seat taken?”

I shook myself out of my reverie and looked up. Standing by my desk was a boy about my age, blue eyes and a shock of dirty blonde hair cut short. He was the opposite of Diarmuid Brennan if I’d ever seen one.

“No. Go for it.”

“I’m Tim,” he said as he sat down. He had a cute drawling Australian accent.

“Saoirse,” I said as we shook hands.

His hands were soft, unlike Diarmuid’s rough ones.

He tilted his head and I noticed how clear his blue eyes were. “Sorry, how do you say your name again?”

“Sier-sha,” I pronounced. “It’s Irish.”

He smiled. “I thought you had a cute accent.”

I blinked. He was flirting with me.

“Um, thanks.”

“What brings you to Australia?”

I hesitated just for a moment before smiling. “Just needed a change. To see what’s out there.”

He nodded. “I get you.”

He thought he did. But he didn’t really.

No one did.

Except for Diarmuid.

A flash of pain went through me at the thought of him. Would there ever be a day when I wasn’t reminded of him?

Tim and I chatted while we waited for the lecture to start. He was from a farm in the countryside and he’d moved to Brisbane to study agricultural science. He laughed at my jokes that weren’t that funny. And he smiled at me the whole time we were talking.

I couldn’t say it wasn’t nice to be the centre of someone’s attention.

But still, I felt like there was a chasm between us. Like maybe he might not be so friendly if he knew where I’d come from.

“Hey, so… I wasn’t here at last week’s lecture. I was hoping you’d let me buy you a coffee after class. To pick your brain about what I missed, of course.” He smiled at me.

I wasn’t so ignorant that I couldn’t read between the lines. He was asking me out.

I waited for the flip in my stomach, the kind of flip I got when Diarmuid was around.

It never came.

But Tim was here. And Diarmuid was not. He would never be.

Once again, the pain punched me in the stomach, and I felt for a second like I might pass out.

“You okay?”

I waved off his sweet concerns.

I had to move on. Right? At least, I had to try.

I forced a smile even though I felt like I was betraying Diarmuid. “Sure. Let’s have coffee.”