If I can, you can.
Being a couple didn’t change us. Change was the wrong word. It was more like evolution, like we’d become the thing we were meant to be all along. Day in and day out I walked around feeling like blue skies and sunshine ran through my veins. I’d discovered a secret island where anything was possible and Darragh was the one who’d discovered it along with me. We could visit it together, even when we were apart.
Being together felt like some sort of magic. But it was real. And it was like nothing else.
It wasn’t that Darragh was in my head again when I slunk into class on Wednesday morning; he’d never left. I’d hoped that knowing he’d be waiting for me afterwards would make me less nervous about reading my script. Instead I was doubly anxious and excited, the two emotions feelings like uneasy kin to each other.
Clare and Gianni declared me pale-looking when they saw me that morning. I didn’t argue. The colour was draining out of my face, my fingertips tingling with nerves as I told them about my plan to volunteer to read first so I could put the experience behind me.
“You are so melodramatic,” Gianni intoned, raising both eyebrows as his hand grazed my shoulder. “It will all be over in a few minutes.”
It didn’t feel that way. But I knuckled down, reading the class Sebastian’s unhappy yet realistic story. Pride fought with nerves and sadness inside me as I flipped through the pages. I didn’t have Clare’s dramatic flair or Gianni’s charismatic intensity, but I thought I had something. I hoped it was in the neighbourhood of what Darragh had called depth and truth. When I reached the end, Dermot O’Shea’s and my classmates’ compliments rang in my head. The screenplay wasn’t perfect, but I could still improve it. And having finished one script I could do it again, better. This was only the beginning for me. If only that didn’t mean the course was nearing the end.
Darragh was out in the IFI lobby afterwards. We were at his place by one-thirty, Darragh promising to make me lunch. “We have vegetarian pizza,” he said.
“You have vegetarian pizza?” I repeated incredulously as we stood in his kitchen sipping tall glasses of ice water. Darragh loved to eat things that had once walked around on four legs. He’d said as much the times we’d talked about me being a vegetarian.
“I think of these things,” he bragged. “Actually, my dad was going to Tesco yesterday and I jotted it down on the shopping list so there’d be something here to feed you in case you dropped round. He drives me mad sometimes, but he’s good about doing the shopping and things.”
“So you’ll keep him,” I joked.
“I’m considering it, yeah. He’s on probation.” Darragh’s hand curved into my hair and slid down my back. “Let me stick this pizza in the microwave so we can get the food out of the way.”
“What time will your brothers be home?”
“Not for hours. Five or so.”
“So there’s no hurry.”
“There is,” Darragh said lightly. “You’re going back to Toronto at the start of September and we’re still making up for lost time.”
“We could pretend that’s not happening.” I stepped closer to him so that we were standing toe to toe. “That I’m not going anywhere.”
Darragh’s hand dropped lower, skimming my ass. “That’s a dangerous idea. I could get too attached to you if I’m not careful.”
“So you’re being careful?” I buried my face in his neck, covering it with soft kisses. “Guarding yourself?”
“I’m not. But I should be.” He looked so sincere that my breath stuck in my throat. Then we were kissing, tongues sliding against each other as our jeans crushed together.
He was hard where our pelvises lined up. I was used to that from my months with Matias, but I’d never felt as proud about it as I did in Darragh’s kitchen. I’d done that. He was hard from wanting me.
Darragh stopped to finger the strap of my tank top. “So you’ll have to be gentle with me.”
“And you with me.” I ran my fingers through his hair and spread my palm out against his T-shirt, feeling so incredible that I didn’t know what to do with it. He kept fiddling with my strap, stroking my shoulder.
Then I understood what was happening. He was waiting for me to make the next move, like he’d said last night. Maybe we could’ve stayed in his kitchen like that for hours, making out against the counter, but I wanted to be that bad influence he was hoping for. I knew I couldn’t take things all the way, but there could be more between us…
“Are you sure no one’s going to walk through the door any time soon?” I asked, my skin breaking into goosebumps.
“As sure as I can be. My dad rarely comes home in the middle of the day.”
“Okay, so”—my hand fused to one of his—“let’s make ourselves comfortable on your couch.”
We lurched into his living room together, first sitting on his couch and then kicking off our shoes and lying on it. Our bodies crammed together as we breathed life into each other. I kissed him everywhere I could reach. Buried my fingers in his hair. Pulled his mouth back to mine when it was gone too long. He cupped my ass in his hands and kissed me deep, our bodies moving together like it was all going somewhere.
Running my hands under Darragh’s T-shirt, our mouths lost themselves in endless kisses, his fingers on my skin turning me warmer and warmer. “I can’t take this,” I whispered, my tongue darting out to play with his earlobe. Mercy.
Darragh’s lips spread into a slow smile, his face flushed. “If I can, you can.” His hands inched up my sides and crept in towards my chest, over my top, his fingers gliding across my breasts in slow motion, like we had all the time in the world.
I slid my hands up under his shirt, onto his back and this time I didn’t stop, I pulled it over his head, my eyes tripping on his shoulders. He was stunning in a way that made my lungs threaten to collapse, no six-pack but lean, smooth and naturally sculpted, his skin under his clothes paler than his face or hands. People say the female body is beautiful, but I didn’t think there was a woman alive more beautiful than Darragh.
I peeked at the downy line of fine hair that trailed from his belly button and disappeared into his jeans as Darragh tugged my top up just far enough to be able to kiss my stomach. His right hand dipped between my legs—over my jeans—curling itself around me, his fingers gentle but insistent. “Is this okay?” he said huskily.
“Yeah.” I reached to touch him the same way, over the fabric of his jeans, rubbing the shape of him as Darragh’s body pushed back against my hand. His jaw was set in stone, but his eyes were clear and yielding, his right hand still touching me through layers of cotton. For some reason it felt easier to touch him that way than it did having him do the same for me. Maybe because I wasn’t used to feeling out of control.
I lost my breath, squirming under him because what I was feeling was almost too much. Like someone tickling you to the point where you’re not sure you can stand it. But I didn’t want him to stop. Any fear I had was just of what happened at the moment when I let go. I wasn’t even sure why I was scared of it except that I’d never shared that moment with anyone.
Darragh groaned, his body tensing. He kissed my neck and buried his face in my shoulder. I felt him exhale into the crook of my neck and then he was shifting his weight to face me. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I wanted you to get there first. But I’ve been thinking about you so much.”
“I’ve been thinking about you too.”
Darragh smiled a smile I’d never seen on his lips before, a private smile that was just for the two of us. “Good,” he said. He ran his hand up my leg, tracing my curves until he was back at the spot he’d left me.
I hovered there for the longest time. Kissing Darragh and leaning into his hand, moving against it, just like he had with mine, until I thought I’d explode like a piñata. He wanted it to happen for me just as much as I did and we kept trying, me perpetually on the edge of igniting, until we were both worn out from the effort.
Switching gears, Darragh heated up our pizza and after polishing it off we watched Let the Right One In on his laptop while lying snuggled up on the couch together. I liked that he watched closely, as though it mattered, and didn’t talk through half of the movie the way my friends sometimes did, especially when a movie had subtitles.
We waited until the end credits were rolling to start fooling around again. Only the anticipated arrival of Darragh’s brothers cooled things down. When they trooped through the door they were surprisingly well behaved compared to the last time I’d met them, chatting to me about zombie movies and characters out of The Walking Dead. Darragh had told Ciaran and Cillian that I wanted to be a screenwriter and that I was into some sci-fi and horror stuff.
I guess that scored me bonus points. I wasn’t the American version of Ursula anymore and The Brash Heathens weren’t complete brats. But it would be a week before Darragh and I had a chance to be totally alone again.
______
During my final screenwriting class I was awash in nostalgia before the experience had officially come to a close. Once everyone finished presenting their scripts and been given a multitude of feedback, for better or for worse, Dermot O’Shea congratulated us on a job well done. “Don’t just write the scripts that fall inside your comfort zone and don’t just write for the popular trends,” he advised. “Write to break the molds. Write what has meaning for you. Stretch yourself. Stay disciplined. Keep writing.”
I felt myself tear up, not because Dermot O’Shea had been my Robin Williams or Sidney Poitier, but because he was the first person who’d given me a glimpse inside the door of the life I wanted. Several of my fellow students surrounded him at the end of class, reluctant to let their leading connection to the world of filmmaking disappear. I was tempted to loiter too, but Gianni and Clare were already urging me on from the hallway.
Neil from class trailed me outside and suggested we all have a celebratory drink down the road at The Porterhouse. When we got there everyone seemed to be in a collective good mood that they didn’t want to go to waste. Sean Madding and Neil cornered Dermot O’Shea for information on the intermediate screenwriting course and me, Gianni and the others sat around in a big group laughing at virtually anything. Gianni teased me about not being able to order a pint because of my age and I zipped over to the bar with a mature expression and bought him one to prove him wrong.
“Amira, I am going to miss you!” Gianni exclaimed, throwing one arm around me as he kissed my cheek. “Email me from snowy sunny Canada.”
Clare, Gianni, and I strolled up the boardwalk together, stopping to say goodbye at O’Connell Bridge. When they’d gone I’d loitered there alone, gazing up and down the bustling street and across the slate-green waters of the Liffey. It didn’t normally look pretty but in the sunshine you could imagine it did, and it seemed to me that if you stood on that bridge long enough the entire population of Dublin would pass by. I leant against the railing and tried to commit every detail to memory—each storefront, statue and vender stall, the Luas whizzing silently by on its tracks and jaunty accents chattering away in the background. It felt as though I could’ve stood there until the end of the month, right up until the moment I was due leave for the airport, and that I still wouldn’t have been able to absorb the entire essence of Dublin.
It was forever in motion. Never an empty moment.
When I did tear myself away from O’Connell Bridge it was to roam the city streets, back along the quays, into Temple Bar and then Dame Street, following it east until it morphed into College Green where I hung a left onto Westmoreland Street and waited until the last possible moment to catch a bus home.
There would be other days ahead. Dublin and I weren’t finished yet. But no matter how long I stood with the soles of my feet glued to Dublin cement, I couldn’t stop thinking that today was the first goodbye.