Silas’ first reaction upon seeing me in the place it all started is one of sheer terror. I can see it clearly plastered across his face, which has suddenly drained of colour.
“I thought I’d bring an extra pair of hands,” Brian announces as we approach him.
“O-okay.”
“I know this was a sort of emergency.”
“Y-yeah. I wanted to get it done before it got dark.”
“We can do it, right?” He turns to me.
I nod uncomfortably.
“Well, I’d say we can get started. I left all the tools in the car,” he says, nodding towards the path we just walked down. “I’ll go and get them.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” I say right away, afraid of being left alone with him.
“There’s no need. Why don’t you take a look at what we’ve got to do?”
Brian leaves us alone, and I’m forced to face the reason I decided to run as fast as possible from this place all those years ago.
“If you want to follow me…” We walk towards the stables. “Here,” he says, gesturing at a partly damaged section of fencing. “The horse is out with the others right now, but I need to sort it out before they get back. I can’t risk him getting out during the night.”
“Sure, no problem. It shouldn’t take long, with three of us.”
Silas laughs. “Nice of you to include me in that, too.” He sneaks a passing glance in my direction, then returns his gaze to the fence. “You should know that DIY isn’t my forte.”
I blush.
“Some things never change.”
His voice is like a gentle breeze, brushing quietly though the grass on a mild summer afternoon. I could never forget it, just as I could never forget the effect this place – his presence – has on me. When I’m here, time stands still. I stand still. I’m suspended, imprisoned in a life I wasn’t brave enough to live – one that I can’t help but reminisce over.
Silas is silent. The sounds of the countryside around us remind us of what we were – what we never had the strength to be.
I loved this place. I loved it so much that I dreamed about it every night for the first two years I was away. I loved it so much that it began to suffocate my soul, until I started to hate it – hate it more than I hated myself. Because in spite of my best efforts, I just couldn’t forget about it.
“If you don’t want me here, I can invent an excuse to leave.”
Silas looks at me. “Why wouldn’t I want you here?”
Because this is the place where I broke your heart.
Silas seems to read the response in my eyes. I’ve never been able to hide anything from him – not even the things I most wanted to keep hidden.
“It wasn’t your fault. It was all me.”
“All you? What do you mean?”
“I should’ve guessed. Well, I should’ve known.” He sighs, wrapping his arms around himself, as if wanting to keep himself safe. He always used to do this when he felt he’d done something wrong – when he was afraid I was wrong for him. And I would run over to hug him, reassure him, tell him that I was with him, that I always would be.
I step closer, moved by my own memories, by an instinct to protect him which has always lingered within me. I’m ready to do it again; to wrap him up in my arms, hold him against me, inhale his scent. But the sound of shoes on gravel makes me suddenly leap back, just as I did all those years ago, when I was scared that someone might see us; that all the gossip would become an uncomfortable truth.
“Here I am. Sorry, someone called me and…” Brian trails off as soon as he notices the distance between us, the heavy silence in the air. “I’m guessing it’ll be a long afternoon.”
Silas strides past us and away from the stables, disappearing into the countryside.
“I only left you two for five minutes!” he glares at me.
“This was a bad idea.”
“I can see that.”
I shake my head in irritation. I don’t like the fact that Brian Veldons knows so much about me.
“You know how I see it?”
“No, and with all due respect, Brian, I don’t want to know. You and I are not friends. You have no right to get involved in my life.”
“Everyone gets involved in everyone’s life here. It’s a small town. We’ve all known each other forever.”
“You don’t even live here.”
“Connemara is with me wherever I go. It doesn’t matter how far I am. It’s always here,” he says, touching his chest, “along with the people who live here.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so invested in me, in my life… When you lived here you barely even spoke to me.”
“Things change.”
“Maybe I preferred the way you were before.”
“You can’t really think that.”
“Try me.”
“Okay, got it.” He lifts his hands. “If you want me to stop getting involved, I’ll stop.”
“I’d be grateful if you would.”
“But if it’s not me, it’ll be someone else. And I don’t imagine you want the world’s most annoying brother-in-law to start breathing down your neck.”
“R-Reid?”
“Who else?”
“Don’t tell me that…”
He shrugs. “It’s a small town, I told you. Everyone finds out, sooner or later.”
“You’re insane.”
“If you say so.”
“Why don’t we just get to work? I seem to remember someone saying it had to be finished before this evening.”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
I’m trying to protect myself, to protect him, just as I’ve always done.
Brian rolls his eyes, but passes me the toolbox. “Whatever. But this isn’t over.”
I had no doubt about that.
It doesn’t take us long to repair the fence – less than two hours – and, luckily, we spend most of that time in silence. Brian doesn’t bring it up anymore, to my great relief, but when it’s time to go home and we’re heading back to the car, he decides to say something.
“I know it’s none of my business, but if I were you, I wouldn’t leave things like this.”
“We’ve finished the job.”
“You know what I mean. I don’t know what you said to each other out there, but he never came back. And now you’re leaving.”
I glance behind me towards the stables.
“Don’t ever leave things unsaid, Leo. Take it from someone who stayed silent for too long, who almost risked never finding his way home.”
Brian climbs into the car and closes the door. I stay standing outside, rubbing my hands nervously on my legs. Something painful is hammering in my chest.
“Can you wait for two minutes?” I ask anxiously.
Brian flashes me a small smile, and I take a deep breath, deciding to face him. I’m not sure what to say, but I know for sure where I’ll find him. I head into the fields; I know all the paths, all the hiding places. I spent the best years of my life here, with the best person I’ve ever met: the only one who ever made me feel like I had a place in the world. That same person is in front of me now, sitting on a wooden bench on top of a hill which overlooks the entire valley below us.
I go over and stand behind him.
“You always know where to find me.”
I sigh. Regret has balled into a knot in my throat, my stomach.
“I knew you couldn’t… That you could never have…” He stops for just as long as it takes to draw two breaths, deciding which of the two to use, then. “I was young and naïve.”
“We were both young,” I correct him. “And you’ve never been naïve. I was the one who was… Confused.”
“Confused.” He laughs. I don’t think it’s a good thing. He gets up and turns to face me. “You were confused.”
“You were…” I gesture towards him, lifting my arm. “You were so…”
“So what?”
Not were, Silas. Are.
You are.
And I knew it then, just as I know it now. But if I was a scared, confused boy back then, now I’m a terrified, insecure man. I’m terrified by the idea of making the wrong decision – of not being able to make the right one even after everything that’s happened. Now that I’m here again, standing in front of you. Because you bring everything out of me, you see through me, you… You bring out the real me. And I hid it so well, kept it in the dark for so long, that I’m afraid for it all to come out now. It would just be another irreparable mistake.
“I can’t.”
I say it again.
Then I do it again.
I turn my back on him and simply leave. As if it were nothing, as if we were nothing.
Time hasn’t changed anything. Loneliness hasn’t changed anything. Regret, memories, nostalgia: they changed nothing.
I was a mistake then and I’m a mistake now.
He was never the problem.
I’m not good for him.
I’m the wrong man.