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Diarmuid

 

 

 

She didn’t apply to university?

My head spun with this new information. She was a friggin’ genius, for God’s sake. She couldn’t throw away her potential. She couldn’t just work in a café and live with her drug dealer father all her life.

I wanted to grab her and shake her.

Or just grab her.

But I could hold her no more easily than I could scoop the moon off the surface of the lake with my hands. She was forbidden to me.

“It’s fine,” I repeated. “It’s fine. You can apply next year.”

She let out a sigh. “I don’t think I will.”

“What? Saoirse, you have to.”

“Why?”

“You have a gift. You can’t just throw it away.”

She stood up, kicking my chair out from behind me. “What does it fucking matter to you?”

“Because I care about you,” I said. “I care about your future.”

I cared. God, did I care. The problem three years ago was that I cared too much. I crossed the line in my job getting as close to her as I did, in letting her get as close to me as she did.

Here we were again. On the other side of Ireland. Jesus, life was funny sometimes.

“You didn’t three years ago,” she said.

I gritted my teeth, her words stabbing me like needles. “Saoirse. I did what I had to do.”

She still hated me for what I did. What I had to do. I did the right thing for her back then even if she didn’t see it that way. I’d do the right thing by her now. Even if it meant she’d hate me forever.

She whipped her head around to glare at me. “You left me.”

“I had responsibilities.”

“I was supposed to be your soul family,” she hissed, leaning forward towards me. “Or did you forget what you promised me?”

For a second we just stared at each other. I could see the young girl in her face, hidden by the woman she was now. The girl who clung to me when life had gotten unfair, the girl who had looked at me as if I was her whole world. The girl who had relied on me to fix things for her.

I could have gone on forever being her hero.

I could have.

But it wasn’t to be.

I let out a long breath. “I’m so sorry, Saoirse.”

Saoirse blinked as pain flashed behind her eyes. She slammed back into her seat and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t fucking matter now, does it.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Whatever.”

“I missed you,” I admitted quietly.

She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a shaky breath. “Don’t.”

“I thought of you every day.” I pushed again even though I knew I shouldn’t.

Her eyes flew open, the sadness replaced with pure anger.

“Screw you!” Her eyes flicked up to the clock. “Oh, look at that. Time’s up.”

I let out my own sigh. This meeting had not gone to plan. I didn’t mean to admit those things. I didn’t mean to lose my cool. My plans seemed to go out the window around her.

She stood and grabbed her bag from beside her. “Guess your stimulating little lecture will have to wait until next week.”

“Same bat time,” I said without thinking.

“Same bat channel,” she said, then froze.

Our eyes locked.

There was a softness in her sea-green eyes. The old Saoirse looked back out at me. The one who I hadn’t hurt beyond repair. My heart tugged. Maybe I still had a chance…

A chance for what, Diarmuid?

Her wall came crashing down again and that sweet girl disappeared behind a sneer.

I walked behind her as she strode to the door.

I had to change things up. Shake things around. Get her doing something so that she’d forget how angry she was with me.

“Come to O’Malley’s gym next Friday,” I said. “We’ll meet there instead.”

She shrugged, one hand already on the door handle. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

Then she left.

As I watched her walk away, something knotted in my stomach. Three years I hadn’t seen her. But she still had my skin. I still had hers.