“If you don’t want people to start sticking their nose into your business, maybe you should stop looking over at him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say to my sister, grabbing two sausages from the barbecue and putting them on my plate.
“You haven’t taken your eyes off him,” Darcy says again. “And I don’t think I’m the only one who’s noticed.”
I look around to make sure no one’s listening to us.
“Any updates?”
“What kind of updates, Darcy?”
“I don’t know, you both seem… Nervous.”
“Nervous?”
“We could all feel the tension between you earlier.”
“Have you been talking about me behind my back?”
“Behind your back? We’re right here!” Reid’s voice immediately makes me roll my eyes, before focusing on his words and realising that he didn’t come alone.
“Do we have to give him a little push?” he asks Sloan.
“Why don’t we just wait and see what happens?” my sister responds.
“Did you see what happened when we waited too long to push Alex?” he points out.
“That’s true…”
“Are you talking about my husband?” Ellie appears. “Should I be worried about your relationship?” Ellie says to Reid.
I glare at Darcy.
“I swear I was on my own when I came over here. My intentions were good.”
“You should’ve known they’d have come flocking over like vultures.”
“I don’t think a little push would do him any harm,” Alex says, then. “I mean, it worked with me, right?”
“Can we not just leave them to it?” Brian interjects. “They’re adults. They’re capable of sorting things out for themselves without any unwanted help.”
“Like we did with you?” Shane responds. “It was actually the best choice, in the end. You got there on your own, in spite of your empty head.”
Brian pulls a face at him, and my sister Darcy weaves her hands around his arm, leaning in.
“You know I can hear everything you’re all saying, right?” I ask, seeing as they all seem completely comfortable talking about me whilst I’m right here.
“Absolutely,” Reid says, biting into a sausage, before continuing with his mouth full. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”
“I don’t understand what you want from me – or why I should be listening to you, Reid. You’re not even my favourite brother-in-law!”
“Do you have a favourite brother-in-law?”
I look at Brian and shrug.
Reid scoffs. “Him? Seriously?”
“Brian actually has two,” Shane points out, just as Andy joins us.
“Why do you all look so suspicious?”
“We’re trying to give him a hand,” Reid says.
“A hand? Who?”
They all turn towards Leo, who is luckily talking to Sullivan at the moment, his back to us.
“It might take more than a hand,” Andy says.
“Why don’t you all stick your hands somewhere they might be more useful?” I respond.
“You need to get a move on,” Andy continues, in spite of my less-than-happy expression. “Because I don’t think he’ll give in so easily.”
“Hey, what the hell is going on over here?” my dad says, joining us. “Is there some sort of private party that I wasn’t aware of?”
“We’re just giving Silas some advice,” Darcy says.
“Are you sticking your noses in?”
“Sort of.”
“When are you two going to stop getting too involved with your brother’s life?” my dad asks, turning to face both my sisters.
“Never,” Sloan responds resolutely. “And be careful, because you could be our next target.”
“Me? What are you hoping to dig up about my life?”
“We don’t know,” Darcy adds. “That’s why we’ve got our eyes on you. Without us, you’d both be totally lost.”
I smile, in spite of everything. My sister is right: without her and Sloan, Dad and I would be lost, with no direction. I’m glad Darcy’s decided to stay, and I’m even happier that our family is almost reunited. Dad really needed this – I needed it, too; having my sisters here with me makes me feel less… Sad. And yet, that’s how I feel anyway. Especially since he’s come back into my life with the sole intention of reminding me that, no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be able to forget. I’ll never be able to let go.
Avoiding him for the rest of the afternoon doesn’t seem like the best idea. There’s no point pretending he’s not here, that my eyes aren’t constantly following his every movement. There’s no point pretending that his presence isn’t the only thing I can feel right now. So I decide to go over to him, in a moment of strange calmness.
“Having fun?” I ask him, as he opens another beer.
He hands it to me, and I accept. “Thanks.”
He nods, taking another. “It’s nice here.”
“Yeah… It looks like a completely different place, now.”
“It’s the company. People are what make a place special.”
I couldn’t agree more, but I don’t think telling him that right now will help my situation.
“Did your brother not want to come?”
“Noel’s not a huge fan of big events.”
“Big events? In Letterfrack?”
He laughs. “Half the town is here.”
I laugh, too. “You might be right.”
He takes a sip of his beer and I watch as his lips brush against the bottle, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
“No work today, then?” I attempt, making banal conversation in the hope I’ll be able to concentrate on something else.
“I’m usually off on Sundays.”
“Do you not… Er… Go out?”
He studies me intently.
“Yeah, I mean, between work and…”
And what else? Why am I making myself sound so stupid?
“No, not really.”
“Maybe… I don’t know… Maybe you’d like to go for a walk.”
“A walk.”
I swallow, air and anxiety knotting together in my throat. “With me.”
“Oh…”
“N-now.”
What am I doing? Oh, right: I’m giving myself a little push, because I let myself be convinced by the usual gang of idiots.
Leo looks around, visibly uncomfortable.
“In the fields,” I explain. “We could go for a walk in the fields."
He looks at me for a moment, his expression indecipherable. “Like old times?”
I don’t know whether it would count as old times or new times, or whether it’s maybe a mix of both. All I know is that I’d like to spend a few minutes with him without worrying about prying eyes inevitably fixed onto us.
“Whatever you’d like to call it.”
He considers it, then smiles timidly.
“Lead the way.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him as soon as we’re far enough from the garden. We’ve left the Veldons’ house and are moving towards the countryside around it, which is mainly used for herding sheep.
“What for?”
“Everyone was staring at us.”
He shoves his hands into his pockets, walking along beside me.
“It’s not easy to avoid them.”
We left as discreetly as possible, but it wasn’t a simple undertaking. I could feel everyone’s eyes on us, felt them follow us as we disappeared into the fields. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him to come for a walk right after everyone decided to tell me the time had come for me to make a move. But I noticed him standing there, looking out of place, and he felt so far. I was scared that things between us might go right back to square one.
“I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“Why?”
“The other day, at the hotel.”
“You’re sorry you kissed me?”
He casts me a quick glance, before fixing his gaze back in front of us.
“No, not that. I just shouldn’t have done it in that way. Then run off.”
He tries again to gauge my reaction, but my eyes haven’t moved away from his for even a second.
I’m not afraid to look at you, Leo, even though I know how much it hurts every time you don’t look back at me in the way I’d hope.
“I was scared. Scared of your reaction. You could’ve hit me.”
“Why would I have hit you?”
“I had no right to do it, but I couldn’t help it.”
I smile, flattered, in spite of everything.
We keep walking until we reach the fence around the property in front of us. We both stop and turn around, resting our backs against the wood. There’s no one around at this time – it’s almost dark by now. The animals have gone inside for the night, and the farmers have all gone home. Above us, the moon is peeking through the clouds, the slowly darkening sky mirroring our thoughts, all the words we don’t know how to say.
Leo slides his hand into the space between our bodies, his pinky finger brushing imperceptibly against mine. I look down at the same moment as him, as if we could feel the same electricity coursing through our fingers, our hearts. We lift our heads. I think this is the first time we’ve really looked at each other so deeply and longingly. It’s ours. This is the first time no one has any power over the other; we can’t deny each other anything. His pinky finger continues brushing against mine, the way it has hundreds of times, before slowly slipping away, back to where it was.
I don’t feel disappointed. I don’t feel abandoned.
Something is telling me that this isn’t like all the other times. My heart is telling me that something has changed.
He’s changed.
“Why?”
“Mmm?”
“Why couldn’t you help it?”
“I was scared I’d forgotten, and I desperately wanted to remember.”
“What?”
“What it means to kiss you.”
I blush against my will, but luckily, he’s not looking at me. I don’t want to seem like a little boy with an embarrassing crush. I want to tell him that he can do that every time he forgets us – but I keep it to myself.
“Was it how you remembered?”
He smiles, his eyes turned skywards.
“It was more. It was all just… More.”
I don’t tell him that I thought the exact same thing. Yet I was so sure I remembered everything: the pressure of his mouth, the movements of his tongue, the heat of his hands on my face. The electricity his body transmits to mine.
“I can’t believe we’re here talking about this.”
“Are you embarrassed?”
He nods.
“I understand.”
I can’t hide my disappointment.
“That doesn’t mean that I…” He gets to his feet and turns to face me. I get up, too, waiting.
“What? What shouldn’t I think?”
“It’s not easy for me.”
“I think you’ve already told me that. Loads of times. Too many times.”
“No, I didn’t mean…” He runs his hand through his hair and looks away, out to the countryside to our right.
I should leave now. I should file away this short moment, my madness. But he turns back to me, then, his hands on my face, and I’m paralysed instantly by a desire to feel his skin on mine again.
“It’s not easy, seeing you every day, being so close, breathing the same air…”
I bite my lip instinctively and his eyes drop to my mouth.
“I don’t know how to do this, Silas.”
“How to do what?”
“I wish I could go back in time.”
“Back. Back to when, exactly?”
His eyes grow painfully damp.
“You can’t,” I say, gently. “And you shouldn’t even want to.”
He lets me go slowly and moves backwards.
“Would you want to?”
“Go back in time? Honestly, I don’t know. You made your decision. You left. I don’t understand why you’re saying all this to me now…”
“Because I need to… I need you to understand and…”
“And what? Forget? I can’t do that, I’m sorry.” I walk past him out towards the fields, back the way we came.
“I should never have done it!” he yells to my back. I take a deep breath and turn around, wrapping my arms around my body in an attempt to protect something.
“I should never have given you up.”
His confession doesn’t dull the pain I felt the moment he broke my heart; the pain I’ve felt every time a man tried to give me something I didn’t want. Something I only wanted from him.
“I’ll never forgive myself. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry. So sorry. And if I could go back…”
“You can’t. You can’t go back or erase what you did. You can’t pretend it never happened.”
Leo stares at me, his gaze pained, his arms wooden by his sides. His hands are balled into fists, his chest puffed anxiously.
“You can’t fix what you’ve broken. You can’t fix us.”