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Saoirse

 

 

 

It was an old shoebox. Selkie written in black scrawl across the top. I brushed my nickname written in Diarmuid’s hand before I slid off the lid.

I pulled out the couple of papers on top first, my eyes scanning the pages, greedy for the contents.

My gasp caught in my throat.

It was my report card, the one where I’d gotten my first A+ in science. The one I’d given him.

And my short story, “Diarmuid and His Selkie”, the story I’d written for him.

“You…you kept these?” I glanced up to Diarmuid.

He swallowed, his eyes not meeting mine, then nodded.

My heart swelled up, all tender and warm. He kept them. All this time.

I pressed the papers to my chest before setting them aside.

All that was left in the shoebox was another box, light blue and small enough to sit in one hand.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“For—” Diarmuid cleared his throat. “For you.”

For me?

My heart began to pound as I slid the lid off the blue box.

Inside was a charm bracelet with three charms on it. I pulled it out, dropped the box aside, and held the bracelet in the palm of my hand.

The first charm was a tiny Irish harp. I recognised the second as the serotonin molecule, the happiness molecule. And the third was a woman with a seal’s tail, a tiny selkie.

I collapsed, sitting on the bed, my knees failing me.

Diarmuid lowered himself to kneel in front of me, so we were eye to eye, face to face.

“I bought the bracelet and a single charm for you for each of your birthdays. I just didn’t send it to you because…” he trailed off, his stare going soft.

He didn’t have to finish that sentence. I knew him well enough to do it for him.

He didn’t send it to me because he thought it was better for me not to hear from him. To forget him. To get over him.

This whole time I thought he didn’t care. I thought he forgot about me, too busy with his new life and his new family to even spare me a thought.

Turns out I was wrong.

He thought of me every year that we’d been apart.

He bought me a gift every year even though he didn’t think I’d ever receive it.

“Saoirse, no…”

I only realised I was crying when his warm palm slid over my cheek and he brushed aside my tears with the rough pad of his thumb.

“Not sad,” I mumbled. “I’m…serotonin.” In my hand I fingered the tiny metal molecule.

His lips lifted into a soft smile. “Me, too.”

This was what I had always dreamed about since the day I met him five years ago, that he’d look at me this way, just once.

I lost myself in his eyes, his intense stare. Or perhaps I had only just found myself.

Before I could think about it, I leaned forward...we leaned forward. Or perhaps we fell.

And fell.

Until our lips connected.

His mouth was soft, firm. His lips fit perfectly against mine as if they belonged there. His palm, still cupping my cheek, went from warm to searing against my skin.

But he didn’t move.

He didn’t kiss me back.

Oh shit. Once again, I’d misjudged things. Shit shit shit.

I pulled back, our mouths separating, my lashes fluttering open, desperate to see his reaction to my kissing him for a second time, even though I was just as terrified to see the rejection waiting for me, his pained refusal for a second time.

His eyes were open, wide and shocked. Just like last time.

I pulled farther away, excuses tangled on my tongue.

I didn’t get a chance to voice any of them.

His hand on my cheek slid back, grabbing me by the back of my neck and yanking me towards him.

This time I really did fall.

I dropped the bracelet. My hands, open to catch my fall, landed on his shoulders, so firm and hard.

This time our mouths crashed together on purpose, a deliberate accident. A beautiful wreck.

His lips parted and I felt his tongue stroke against my lips. I gasped at the sensation, my own lips parting, letting him in.

My head spun. My thoughts silenced as he kissed me with enough ferocity to bruise, with a hunger that felt violent and insatiable. And yet, I couldn’t get enough.

I had always been his. But now he had laid claim to me. His kiss branding me deep into my soul.

When he groaned into my mouth, the noise rumbling through my very centre, his soft beard brushing my skin, his fingers tightening around the back of my neck, I knew I’d forever be wrecked. Ruined. Broken into a thousand pieces that would only fit him.

My fingers slid across his shoulder, his neck, gripping into his shoulder-length hair, tangling into the soft curls at the base of his neck. I was making a mess of his ponytail, but I didn’t care.

All I could feel was him. All that existed was us.

And it was beautiful.

And wrong.

And bliss.

Until it wasn’t.

His hands shoved me and I went flying onto my back across his bed.